Kel's previous Ozwords of the day...

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Liberal—third thoughts Tonight on the ‘Credlin’ program on Sky News I’ll respond to the challenger that Peta set me last week—what does the word ‘liberal’ tell us about what the Liberal Party could and should be? As you know I’ve been wrestling with this for a week now, and here is the answer I would like to share with Peta tonight (make sure you’re watching for Peta’s contribution!): The word ‘liberal’ has been part of the English language since at least 1384. Behind it is a classical Latin word liberalis which means ‘freedom’—and ‘freedom’ is the core meaning behind all the uses of ‘liberal.’ For instance, it can mean ‘generous’—that is freedom from selfishness. If someone talks about a club having a ‘liberal’ attitude to rules—it means ‘freedom from restrictions or discipline.’ Freedom is the core notion. And that’s why the word ‘liberal’ was used by British philosophers such as John Locke in the 1600s, Adam Smith in the 1700s and John Stuart Mill in the 1800s to formulate a liberal political philosophy built on freedom—freedom from excessive government interference in the lives of citizens, free speech, free markets, free trade and so on. And ‘liberal’ as the political philosophy of freedom has always included the notion of responsibility, which is the other side of the ‘freedom’ coin—a free people are people who take responsibility for themselves, their families and their communities. The opposite is dependence on government, and handing over responsibility to government to make decisions about our lives—which means loss of freedom. This is what Menzies’ political philosophy consisted of, and why he called the party he formed in 1944 the Liberal Party—as an embodiment of freedom and responsibility. The essential principles found in his book The Forgotten People were the principles of individual freedom, personal and community responsibility, the rule of law, parliamentary government, economic prosperity and progress based on private enterprise and reward for effort. Perhaps we should stop using the word ‘conservative’ and switch to talking about freedom and responsibility? Perhaps if the shattered Liberal Party switches from debates between conservatives and moderates and gets back onto the path of freedom and responsibility that would give it a road back to government?

Woke once more For the last few weeks I have been engaged in an email debate with a reader who challenged my definition of ‘Woke.’ Here’s what I wrote in late April that so upset him: “We’ve been hearing the word ‘Woke’ tossed around for some years now. It is the name now given to what was once called ‘political correctness’—that is, holding and expressing what the self-appointed elite regarded as the ‘right’ political opinions. Under the label ‘Woke’ this attitude became even more demanding—and assumed moral superiority over everyone who disagreed with them.” This reader objected. He insisted I cite some authority for this definition. I replied that the only authority needed was to look at how the word is used. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1947), a distinguished Cambridge philosopher, famously said ‘The meaning of a word is its used in the language.’ Just look at how its used, I said, and you’ll see that my account of the word is correct. However, he refused to take part in the exercise of looking at how the word is used, and demanded an answer from someone else. So, here is someone else. And the someone else I have chosen is distinguished educationalist Dr Kevin Donnelly. In 2022 he published The Dictionary of Woke (Wilkinson Publishing, still in print if you’d like to buy a copy). In that book he offers the following definition of ‘Woke’:

“Refers to being able to define oneself and to see others and the wider world through a politically correct prism. The Urban Dictionary defines this as ‘A reference to how people should be aware in current affairs.’ As in: While you worried about whether you could order a decaf, free trade, almond milk latte China was building over 100 coal fired power stations.”

Now Dr Donnelly is mocking the fatuous self-obsession of the ‘Woke’—but he was also defining the word exactly as I do. The Oxford has an explanatory note in its discussion of ‘Woke’ in which it says the word started out meaning ‘alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice’ but then it decayed into its current meaning: ‘In more recent use [Woke is used as a] derogatory word, especially as a means of characterizing such alertness (or the political and social views stereotypically associated with it) as doctrinaire, self-righteous, or pernicious.’ That is certainly the understanding of the word ‘Woke’ you can discover by undertaking Wittgenstein’s practice of looking and seeing how it is being used. In fact, another of Wittgenstein’s famous dictums was: ‘Don’t say it must be so, look and see.’ I hope that satisfies my quibbling reader.

Y Yes, our focus today is just one letter out of the 26 letters in our alphabet. Way back in our primary school days we were taught that the vowel sounds are made by the letters a, e, i, o, and u. The other 21 letters of the alphabet, we were told, were called consonants. And school children are still told that. But hang on, as in so many bits of the English language, things are (in reality) not as simple as that. First, some definitions. Professor Sweet’s classic textbook on phonetics defines a ‘vowel’ as the sound of the voice ‘modified by some definite configuration of the super-glottal passages, but without audible friction (which would make it into a consonant)’. In other words, a vowel is an open sound, not stopped by the tongue, the teeth or the lips. And the Oxford helpful adds that vowel sounds are produced in the larynx while consonant sounds are formed in the mouth (or in the mouth and nose). Which is just a complicated way of saying something we all already know. But back to ‘Y’ and the question of whether it really is a consonant (as we were taught to assume) or not. The answer to that question is—sometimes. In a word such as ‘yellow’ or ‘yacht’ the letter ‘Y’ is doing exactly what the 21 consonants in the English language are supposed to do—forming a consonant sound in the mouth (in this case, by ‘stopping’ the sound with the tongue shaped against the roof of the mouth—try saying ‘Y’ and you’ll see what I mean). But, but, but— ‘Y’ can sometimes make a vowel sound. ‘Y’ can be considered as a vowel if the word has no other vowel in it (such as ‘my’); or if it is the letter at the end of a word of syllable (such as ‘candy’, ‘deny’, bicycle’, or ‘acrylic’); or if the letter is in the middle of a syllable (e.g. ‘system’). The Merriam-Webster folk say: ‘In such cases, the letter \y\ is pronounced as either the long vowel e or short or long i (usually as a long i when ending a word)—and, for all intents and purposes, it is a vowel.’ From this they reach the conclusion that ‘Technically, this sound of \y\ is considered a semivowel or glide.’ So, there you are. Despite what that nice Mrs Brown told you way back in third class there are not just vowels and consonants, there are also semivowels (or glides). Another letter that also plays fast and loose with these categories is ‘U’ which (we were told) is a vowel (and it often is). But in words such as ‘union’ or ‘uniform’ it makes a consonant sound. In fact, the sound that it makes is a ‘Y’ sound. So much for the letters of our alphabet being clear, simple and always behaving in a consistent way!

Liberal—second thoughts Two days ago I wrote about Pete Credlin’s request that I research the origin and political meaning(s) of the word ‘liberal.’ It turns out not to be simple! The word ‘liberal’ has been part of the English language since at least 1384. Behind it is a classical Latin word liberalis which means ‘freedom’—so the core notion behind all the different political uses of ‘Liberal’ is ‘freedom.’ (It sometimes meant ‘generosity’ as in a gentleman was very ‘free in sharing.’) ‘Liberal’ was first popped up in politics in Britain around 1816—when it was applied to the progressive wing of the Whig Party. But by the end of the 19th cent. the focus of this British Liberal Party had changed from advocating individual rights and freedom from state interference to favouring state intervention in matters of economics and social justice. Meanwhile, as a second (parallel) stream what is called ‘classical liberalism’ had been formulated by philosophers such as John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Adam Smith. In their formulation ‘classical Liberalism’ did not mean government intervention, but rather the freedom of individuals unhindered by government direction and regulation. So, confusingly, ‘Liberal’ as a political word became an ‘auto-antonym’—it meant both freedom from over government, AND its opposite. In both Canada and the United States ‘liberal’ still means the freedom of governments to direct the lives of people (and impose social and economic changes on individuals). But when Robert Menzies founded the Australian Liberal Party (in 1944 from the ashes of the old United Australia Party) he used ‘liberal’ in the classic sense—following the thinking of Mill, Locke and Smith—as meaning the freedom of the people from oppressive government. And he combined two streams in what he called the ‘Liberal Party’—the classical liberalism of freedom from over government together with conservatism. Conservatives are those who seek to conserve the best values from the past—to pass on to the next generation. That means that the best defenders of classical Liberalism (the freedom of the individual) are now the conservatives—who wish to preserve (conserve) such values. While ‘progressive’ liberals (or moderates) are no longer defenders of those old liberal freedoms—such as a free market, free trade, free speech, and freedom of the individual. You see what I mean when I say it’s not simple!

The Devil’s Dictionary Yesterday I wrote about one small, specialist dictionary (Coined by Shakespeare) today another—but a very different small, specialist dictionary. This one is called The Devil’s Dictionary and consists entirely of comic (usually satirical) definitions. The author was American journalist Ambrose Bierce. He was born in 1842, fought in the American Civil War, and died in 1914 on his way to report on the Mexican Revolution. But before that, for many years, the highly inventive Bierce wrote funny definitions in his newspaper columns. After doing this for decades he finally collected them into a single book—possibly to defeat the plagiarists who often quoted his funny definitions without giving him the credit. His book ended up become a major success—and was included in a list of “The 100 Masterpieces of American Literature”. Here is a small taste of Ambrose Bierce and his satirical definitions:

Academy—a modern school where football is taught.

Cabbage—a kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man’s head.

Canon—an instrument employed to rectify national boundaries.

Cat—provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

Dentist—a magician who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls money out of your pocket.

Egotist—one more interested in himself than in me.

Education—that which discloses to the wise (and disguises from the foolish) their lack of understanding.

Future—that period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and our happiness is assured.

Litigation—a legal machine which you go into as a pig, and come out of as a sausage.

Love—a temporary insanity cured by marriage.

Mad—a high degree of intellectual independence.

Politeness—the most acceptable hypocrisy.

Positive—being mistaken at the top of one’s voice.

Prejudice—an opinion without visible means of support.

Selfish—devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.

Year—a period of 365 disappointments.

Would you call him a cynic? Well, that’s what he called himself. In fact, for some years his newspaper column of definitions was called ‘The Cynic’s Dictionary.’ His book, by the way, remains in print. Only some of the definitions are seriously outdated, and many remain as funny (and clever) as ever.

Shakespeare says… In 1998 American lexicographers Stan Malless and Jeff McQuain published a little book called Coined by Shakespeare. It was, as they explained, a small dictionary of words and meaning ‘first penned by the Bard.’ The Oxford English Dictionary (the full dictionary—the big 20-volume job) supports each entry with quotations (what they call ‘citations’) showing the headword in sentences. In the current OED Shakespeare as quoted 2,017 times as the earliest recorded user of those words. He is also the first evidence for 5,527 difference senses of various words. Clearly William Shakespeare (1564—1616) was one of the most brilliant wordsmiths (no, I’ll correct that—the most brilliant wordsmith, head and shoulders above all the rest) the English language has ever known. Here is a small list of ten words popularised by Shakespeare that we still used today:

Bedazzled—Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes, that have been so bedazzled with the sun… The Taming the Shrew

Foulmouthed—he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is, and said he would cudgel you. Henry IV, Part 1.

Bedroom—Then by your side no bed-room me deny; For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie. A Midsummer Night’s Dream/

Swagger—a rascal that swaggered with me last night Henry V.

Well-bred—A gentleman well-bred and of good name …Henry IV, Part 2

Champion—come fate into the list and champion me to the th’utterance. Macbeth.

Droplet—thou abhorred’st in us our human griefs, Scorned’st our brains’ flow and those our droplets which from niggard nature fall … Timon of Athens.

Pageantry—what pageantry, what feats, what shows, what minstrelsy, and pretty din… Pericles

Inaudible—For we are old, and on our quick’st decrees th’inaudible and noiseless foot of time steals ere we can effect them. All’s Well That Ends Well.

Eyeball—Look in mine eyeballs, there thy beauty lies. Venus and Adonis.

….and on and on for thousands more. Either Shakespeare first coined these words (which is possible, he was very inventive) or else he was the first writer to record them. Take an example such as ‘sea change’ (from The Tempest)—it is exactly the kind of word combination Shakespeare was a dab hand at coining. Then again it might have been part of tavern conversation in Elizabeth’s English and he was just the first one to put it into print. Either way, our language owes a lot to Shakespeare. 

Liberal Peta Credlin has asked me to do some research into the word ‘Liberal’—here are my first thoughts: only nine days ago the Liberal Party was massively defeated in the Australian federal election. Only a few days earlier the Liberal Party of Canada had enjoyed a huge victory in that country. Meanwhile, in Britain one of the minor political parties is called the Liberal-Democrats (‘Lib-Dems’ for short) who are the heirs of the crumbling remains of a once great party which was called the Liberal Party of the UK. On the other side of the Atlantic the Americans use the word ‘liberal’ in a political context to almost mean the same as ‘socialist.’ While in Australia ‘Liberal’ has long meant conservative. So, in political terms, this is a word of so many colours it needs some explaining. ‘Liberal’ is recorded in English from around 1384. It’s original meaning was simply ‘generous.’ A ‘liberal’ person was an open-handed, generous person. It comes from the Latin word liberalis which meant something like ‘worthy or typical of a free man’. This gave us the notion of the ‘liberal arts’—those areas of study worthy of being studied by a free man (especially a nobleman). And he was then expected to have this character of generosity—of being a ‘liberal’ man. This became a political word when it was used to mean ‘individual freedom, democracy with little state intervention’ (Oxford) from around 1761. And this was the meaning of ‘liberal’ embraced by Robert Menzies when he launched Australia’s Liberal Party in 1944 (out of the ashes of the old United Australia Party that preceded it). This is the sort of political liberalism that was argued for by British philosophers such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill. Menzies brought together two streams of political beliefs in his new party—these classical liberals I have just described and the conservatives (who wanted to conserve traditional values). Those two strands probably still exist in the Australian Liberal Party to this day. In Britain their Liberal Party was formed officially in 1868 from a coalition of Whigs and free trade Tories. But in American politics ‘liberal’ came to be used to mean ‘a person advocating political and social reform’ (Oxford). And this is why in the US ‘liberal’ means left wing while in Australia it means right wing. I’m starting to think that, when used politically, this is such a vague term that ‘Liberal’ has come to mean ‘Whatever I’m pointing at when I say it’! But, as I said, these are only first thoughts—more later.

Common sense I have wanted to write a column on ‘common sense’ for a long time—but it is a surprisingly difficult topic to write about. That’s because we instinctively, or intuitively, know what ‘common sense’ is, but it’s very hard to put into words. Particularly into words that are simple and straight forward—as simple straight forward as ‘common sense’ itself. You can see this struggle in the definition offered by the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, which says that ‘common sense’ means: ‘the ability to behave in a sensible way and make practical decisions.’ Which (when you look carefully at it) basically says that ‘common sense’ is, well, just common sense! You can see this when the definition uses words such as ‘sensible’ and ‘practical.’ Yes, I agree that both ‘sensible’ and ‘practical’ are synonyms for ‘common sense’—but they don’t actually unpack what is meant by this notion of ‘common sense.’ So, I tried, instead to check The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. This weighty book has an entry on ‘common sense’ written (as it happens) by an Australian philosopher—Tony Coady. It runs for the better part of two columns (one page) so I won’t try to summarise the whole thing. Instead, I’ll give you my response to what he has written. It seems to me that common sense consists of the combination of three things: ‘looking / thinking / sharing.’ By ‘looking’ I mean paying attention to the world around us. By ‘thinking’ I mean doing a bit of reasoning in your brain about the stuff you observe about the world around us. By ‘sharing’ I mean that this gives us stuff that we hold in common (hence, the ’common’ in ‘common sense’). We may not share this out loud. Sometimes our utterances will be little more than a nod of agreement (‘Spot on mate’, ‘Too right!’) But when we apply our common sense to a particular topic, how this works becomes clear. So—as an example—should biological males compete in women’s sport? Common sense gives the answer: ‘Of course not!’ To our ‘looking / thinking / sharing’ it is just obvious. On average blokes are bigger, stronger and faster than women, so men competing in women’s sports is just plain cheating. The problem with our society is just how uncommon ‘common sense’ is. Why do many sporting bodies allow men to compete against women? Because they have stopped ‘looking / thinking / sharing’ and feel committed (perhaps for reasons of social pressure) to a type of pretending. (‘Pretending’ is the opposite of ‘common sense’.) They have deliberately turned off from paying close attention to the world around them, or reasoning logically step-by-step, or pooling such observations and reasoning with the community. They have turned off their ‘common sense.’

Decimate I am (perhaps unwisely) going to buy into the debate about ‘decimate’. We all know how ‘decimate’ is used in popular language—especially by journalists. It’s used to mean the destruction of most a place or population. If a flood roars through a cattle station in north Queensland destroying much of the herd of beef cattle, the journalists will say the herd has been ‘decimated.’ But that is not the original meaning of the word. As I have often explained on both radio and television ‘decimate’ originally meant to reduce BY ten percent, not TO ten percent. So, if 90 per cent of that herd of cattle was wiped out it was not ‘decimated.’ That word does not convey the correct meaning. So, why do the pedants argue this? Because of the origin of the word in Latin. It originally named a disciplinary action in the ancient Roman army. Here’s how the Merriam-Webster explains it: ‘The first sense of “decimate” was born from the Roman practice of disciplining refractory military units by selecting one tenth of the men by lot and executing them. A bit harsh, from a modern standpoint, but presumably the Romans thought it effective.’ In other words, if a squadron has behaved badly they would be lined up and the commanding officer would walk along the line and run his sword through every tenth man. That’s where the ‘deci-’ part of the word comes from (you can see the same component in our word ‘decimal’—counting by tens). But I think we have to understand that the origin of the word does not determine its meaning. Which is why the pedants, in this case, are wrong. Words change over the years, and the meaning of a word is ‘its used in the language’ (Wittgenstein). ‘Decimate’ is now used to mean ‘to reduce drastically especially in number’ (Merriam-Webster). So the notion of a tenth no longer comes into it. The Oxford records that more general meaning from 1660. And the Oxford adds this explanatory comment: ‘This use has sometimes been criticized on etymological grounds, but is now the most usual sense in standard English.’ As an example the Oxford points to a 1957 textbook of correct English as insisting that the ten percent meaning of ‘decimate’ still applies. To the pendants I say: this is not a hill worth dying on. The meaning has changed. It changed a long time ago. ‘Decimate’ now means large scale destruction, and ten percent no longer comes into it. Let’s move on, and fight other, more important, battles for the English language.

Cooker In a recent column in the Sunday Telegraph David Penberthy talked about the slang expression ‘cooker.’ This, he said, has become a pejorative term among the politically obsessed. I asked Joe Hilderbrand if he had come across it (as he is a typical example of the politically obsessed) and he said yes, he’d known this expression for some years. ‘Cooker’ is a derogatory term for a conspiracy theorist. It rose to particular prominence during Covid, as a label for those who said the whole pandemic was a vast conspiracy. You can see at once where the idea sprang from—the notion that a conspiracy theory is something that someone, somewhere, has ‘cooked up.’ Hence they, and anyone who believes what they say, is a ‘cooker.’ But trying to confirm this from the dictionaries proves to be a little difficult. Unsurprisingly, the earliest use of ‘cooker’ (from 1770) was for someone who cooks (a person we would now simply call a ‘cook’). But the most common meaning for ‘cooker’ was for an appliance used for cooking food (from about 1860 onwards)—and that is still the most common use of ‘cooker’ today. I checked the Oxford, the Merriam-Webster, the Collins, and the Cambridge and they all stopped at this point. None had the conspiracy theorist meaning of ‘cooker.’ Ah, I thought, I’ll check out the hyper-hip online Urban Dictionary. But, once again, I was disappointed. The Urban Dictionary told me that ‘cooker’ was often used to mean ‘bottle caps, spoons and other containers used to dissolve drugs.’ And it went on to say that ‘cooker’ could also mean ‘the interior of a hot car on a summer’s day’ (we all know how dangerous that can be!) But none of them pointed the finger at a conspiracy theorist and gave such a person the label of ‘cooker’. So I accept the testimony of David Penberthy (and Joe Hilderbrand) that this usage exists, but the dictionaries appear not to have heard of it. And what about conspiracy theories? Are they just ‘cooked up’ or can they be true? Well, the great Sir Karl Popper (in his book The Open Society and its Enemies) argued that conspiracy theories are unlikely to be true because groups of human beings (especially large groups) are constitutionally incapable of keeping secrets. Sooner or later, he said, someone would blab. So (perhaps) it is safe for us to ignore most conspiracy theories most of the time? 

Mooreffoc Yes, Weird Word time once again. And to understand this one you need to know a bit about ‘Chestertonian fantasy’. That’s the sort of fantasy writing engaged in by the great G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936). What delighted Chesterton was seeing the familiar in unfamiliar ways. He once claimed he had an idea for a story in which a traveller would set out on a sailing ship, be tossed around on a severe storm, and arrive back at his homeland thinking he had landed at some distance, foreign, exotic island. With those thoughts in mind he would see everything that was familiar, that he had known for years, with different eyes—looking strange and startling. He actually tried this experiment of making familiar things look unfamiliar in his novel Manalivein which the hero breaks into his own house and seduces his own wife in order to re-discover the delight of finding things just as they were the first time he knew them. And ‘Mooreffoc’ is the word that names this experience. As Michael Quinion explains: ‘This word is rare and is almost never used in its ostensible sense — relating to things suddenly seen in a new and different way — but only as a keyword to initiate discussion. But it has been keeping illustrious company, since its few appearances in print have been in works by G K Chesterton, J R R Tolkien and Charles Dickens.’ In fact, it was the great Charles Dickens who invented the word (that Chesterton then claimed). It came from an experience he had when he was young and poor. In those days he could only look longingly through the plate glass window that had the word ‘Coffeeroom’ printed across it in large letters. As a successful author he could be inside, drinking coffee with his friends, and seeing the same word from the inside of the plate glass window—where it would appear to be this strange word: ‘Mooreffoc.’ Chesterton, in his biography of Dickens, said that this Weird Word represented the strangeness of things that have become trite when they are suddenly seen from a new angle. J. R. R, Tolkien, in his essay ‘On Fairy-stories’ said: ‘The word Mooreeffoc may cause you to realise that England is an utterly alien land, lost either in some remote past age glimpsed by history, or in some strange dim future reached only by a time-machine; to see the amazing oddity and interest of its inhabitants and their customs and feeding-habits.’ So, try doing a little ‘Mooreffoc’ this week, by looking at something familiar in a fresh, different, and creative way!

Moonlighting In a recent column in The Daily Telegraph Professor Gary Martin wrote about the practice he called: ‘Moonlighting—holding a second job outside one’s primary employment. ‘He said that this practice of ‘moonlighting’ is ‘shining brighter than ever.’ But hang on. Why is it called ‘moonlighting’? When I dig through the history of the word it turns out to contain a number of twists and turns. For instance, here in Australia (from around 1880) ‘moonlighting’ meant mustering wild cattle at night. At about the same time, in Irish history, ‘moonlighting’ meant ‘the performance of an illicit action by night’ (Oxford). While the meaning we’re looking at (‘the practice of doing paid work in addition to one’s regular employment’) appears to be an American coinage. So far it has been traced back to 1954—when the word ‘moonlighting’ was used (probably for the first time) with this meaning in a Pennsylvania newspaper. And why was this practice given the name of the large lump of rock that circles our planet (mostly, but not exclusively, at night)? Because this sort of word is for a second job that is usually done at night. It’s as simple as that really. Nothing really mysterious. So, what about the full-time night watchman who takes a second job during his daylight hours? Would he be accused of ‘daylighting’? Well, if we were being consistent, yes. But the English language is never that consistent, and ‘moonlighting’ is now the standard idiom for that second job, no matter when you do it. And given that source, the word has sprung up in a number of places. For instance, there was the American TV show Moonlighting (1985-1989) that starred Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis, in which they played private detectives. Then there was the song ‘Moonlighting’ by Leo Sayer which was a Top Ten hit in 1975. Verbally ‘moonlighting’ also exists as an action word, as a verb, with several meanings. It can mean ‘to depart hurriedly by night; to do a moonlight flit’ (leaving, one assumes, a lot of unpaid bills behind). And historically ‘moonlighting’ can be applied to anything that takes place by moonlight. Oddly enough, we don’t have an equivalent expression for ‘sunlighting’ (a word my spell checker won’t accept). And this all matters because in the present state of the Australian economy more Aussies at ‘moonlighting’ in two jobs than ever before. That’s the struggle to make ends meet. 

Cartoon If you think the word ‘cartoon’ means the daily political cartoon in the newspaper, or the latest episode of Bluey on television, you may be surprised to learn that ‘cartoon’ has a long and distinguished history. Great artists such as Leonardo da Vinci drew ‘cartoons’—meaning, not funny little pictures meant to amused, but full-sized sketches that would become masterpieces once they were rendered in paint. Because ‘cartoon’ came into English from French (with an Italian word behind the French source word). The origin of our word ‘cartoon’ is carta meaning paper. When ‘cartoon’ is first recorded (around 1684) it meant: ‘A drawing on stout paper, made as a design for a painting of the same size to be executed in fresco or oil, or for a work in tapestry, mosaic, stained glass, or the like’ (Oxford). But it took on a brand-new life—a sort of second life—in the 1800s thanks to the English satirical magazine Punch (which launched in 1841). Just a few years later (in June of 1843) Punch published this announcement: ‘Punch has the benevolence to announce, that in an early number of the ensuing Volume he will astonish… by the publication of several exquisite designs, to be called Punch’s Cartoons.’ So, there you have it—our modern sense of ‘cartoon’ invented out of thin air by a magazine. The early Punch Cartoons were full page satirical political drawings. But rapidly over the next few years they became smaller, funny drawings dealing with almost any subject. Then in the 1860s the first comic strips appeared (although the expression ‘comic strip’ was not coined until 1913). Then ‘cartoon’ started to become part of other, compound, expressions—such as ‘cartoon character.’ And then, of course, the animated cartoon was invented, showing cartoon drawings that sprang to life on the silver screen. Hence, ‘Felix the Cat’ was first a cartoon strip series in newspapers, and then an animated cartoon series at the movies. In 1937 Walt Disney gave the world the first feature-length animated cartoon with their original (and brilliant) version of Snow White. So, it has been a long journey—from the early drafts on thick paper done by serious (and great) artists to the short Bluey cartoons that we (and our kids and grandkids) enjoy on television today.

Caption This word ‘caption’ is closely related to another familiar old English word ‘capture.’ It seems that ‘caption’ came into English (around 1384) from a Latin source word capĕre meaning ‘to take. ‘Capture’ arrived much later (around 1796) travelling through French, but with the same Latin verb somewhere in the background. When ‘caption’ was first used it meant a bunch of words that would ‘capture the sense’ of a document. Its earliest use seems to have been in legal contexts. In the very early years being ‘captioned’ could mean ‘arrest or apprehension by judicial process.’ Especially, says the Oxford, in Scottish law. But then it started to be used of legal documents. Attached to a legal document, especially right at the top, might be a ‘caption’ that somehow ‘captured’ what the whole document was about, and what legal effect it might have. Basically this ‘caption’ at the head of the document said who could take action and when and where they might be found (or permitted) doing so. From this fairly modest beginning ‘caption’ took wings—and any short sentence or paragraph that ‘captured’ (summed up) the whole thing was called a ‘caption.’ So a ‘caption’ could be: ‘the heading of a chapter, section, or newspaper article’ says the Oxford—adding that this use was most common in the United States. Then the little bit of writing below a photograph in a newspaper or magazine that explained (or ‘captured’) the meaning of the picture or photo also came to be called a ‘caption.’ The first job in publishing the great Dorothy Parker had was writing ‘captions’ for Vogue magazine. Then along came silent movies, and (in the absence of dialogue) words appeared on the screen to explain what people were saying—and these too were called ‘captions.’ Nowadays on television we often have what are called ‘closed captions.’ They are ‘closed’ because you have to click a button to open them up. And when you do that, these ‘captions’ translate the dialogue on foreign films into English for those of us whose Norwegian or Danish is getting a little rusty. So, that is the long journey of the little word ‘caption’—from the Latin notion of ‘taking’ or ‘capturing’ to allowing us to follow the dialogue on the latest Scandinavian crime noir story.

Who / Whom A reader, Keiran, wrote to me recently with this plea: ‘I would be thrilled if you could help me to finally make sense of when to use “who” and “whom”.’ In response I promised to write a whole column on the subject—and this is it. Let me start with a spoiler alert—at this end of this column I will tell you to forget about the ‘who/whom’ distinction because it no longer matters. Ah, horror! I’m sure the purists and the pedants will be shocked by my conclusion, but hang on—take a look at the argument for discarding this ancient distinction. Unlike Latin (a dead language) English is a living language. And like the old oak tree, the moto of English is “While I live I grow.” Another way to make the same point is that English is a river not a lake. It is fluid and changing. And my judgement is that one of those changes is the loss of the old distinction between ‘who’ and ‘whom.’ To start with, those two forms (‘who’ and ‘whom’) are remnants of a once much more extensive case system in English. There were once ways of telling the case of a word by looking at the structure of the word. You could tell a word in the subjective case from the same word in the objective case by the way the word was inflected. And in that system ‘who’ is in the subjective case and ‘whom’ is in the objective case. So, under the old case rules if you were talking (or writing) about the subject of a verb you would use ‘who’ but if you meant the object of a verb you would use ‘whom.’ But (and I think it’s a big ‘but’) that old case system has slowly faded away over the centuries as English has become a much less inflected language. The ‘who/whom’ distinction is one of the few remaining echoes of that old system. And even this last little echo is now fading. The experts tell me that the overall use of ‘whom’ has been declining for a long time. It’s now quite rare in speech, although it survives (a little) in written English. In both Australian and American English it is almost gone completely, but it still hangs around as a faint echo in British English. There was a time back in the 1800s when ‘whom’ was just beginning to decline when some pedants actually re-wrote passages in Shakespeare to change a ‘who’ in the objective case into a ‘whom.’ Obviously a very silly thing to do. It’s time to abandon ‘whom’ as a word that has had its day. Let’s pat it on the back and thank it for its loyal service, then put it out to pasture and never us it again. So, as I said at the start—this distinction no long matters, Keiran. Just use ‘who’ in all sentences in all circumstances and you will be just fine.

The Anti-Social Century A period of time can (occasionally) be given a name, or a label. Such a label might cover a long period of time (e.g. the Bronze Age) or a shorter period (the ‘Me’ decade in the 1980s) or a very short period (e.g. Black Friday covering bushfires in Victoria). Well we are only a quarter of the way through the 21stcentury, and already someone has decided to give a name, or label, to this whole century, as—the Anti-Social Century. The term was coined by Derek Thompson in a cover story for the Atlantic magazine. His conclusion was that: ‘Self-imposed solitude might just be the most important social fact of the 21st century.’ In the article he talks about visiting a formerly buzzing restaurant and finding it almost empty. It was still highly profitable, but customers were now ordering home delivered meals rather than bothering to go out for the night. Of course the Covid period started a lot of this, but Covid has ended while self-chosen social isolation (it seems) has not. And there are other bits of evidence as well. It appears the membership of voluntary organisations is collapsing in most western countries. People are now much less likely to join Lions or Rotary. It’s part of the reason for the decline in church membership. It’s why membership of the major political parties has collapsed. People will vote, but not join it seems. Part of the reason seems to be the rise of today’s technology. People, it seems, live their lives glued to their devices—smart phones, tablets, laptops—rather than mixing and talking to real people face to face. Writing in The Oldie magazine Richard Godwin says that according to a recent survey a third of British adults eat alone ‘most or all of the time.’ The trend was predicted by sociologist Robert D Putnam way back in the year 2000 in his book Bowling Alone. And Gen Z might be the loneliest of all. They are complaining about epidemic of ‘flakiness’—people cancelling plans because they ‘just don’t feel like it.’ This is being done by guests invited to weddings, hen parties and birthday parties. For Baby Boomers (my generation) this all seems very strange—since we grew up meeting people face to face. And enjoying it! Not anymore, it seems. Welcome to the ‘Anti-Social Century.’

Botany Bay The great Anu Garg, from ‘A Word A Day’ recently had a week of expressions based on place names. And there among a number of such expressions (a ‘New York minute’ and others) he included the expression ‘Botany Bay.’ It had never occurred to me that this historically significant Australian placename had become a wider expression, but Anu Garg says it has. As an example he quotes a sentence from Jim Dooley in a book entitled For Whom Amnesty Tolls (2007). In that book he writes: ‘Corrupt companies, incompetent governmental agencies, and gutless politicians are the real culprits. There must be a Botany Bay where these characters can be exiled.’ Clearly our placename ‘Botany Bay’ is being used as a generic name for some sort of legal banishment (exile) for criminals. And, of course, that is how the placename itself began. On 28 April 1770 the great navigator Captain James Cook sailed into what is now Botany Bay—just down the coast from Sydney Harbour. His crew caught two stingrays weighing near 600 pounds—so he planned (briefly) to call the place ‘Stingray Bay’ or ‘Stingray Harbour.’ But then Joseph Banks came back from a shore expedition with a boat loaded down with botanical specimens so Cook called the place ‘Botany Bay.’ And that became the official name of the British convict colony established in 1788. The convicts and their guards actually settled at Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) but ‘Botany Bay’ remained the legal name of the settlement and it was referred to as such in the British Houses of Parliament and in the newspapers of the time. So, ‘Botany Bay’ is clearly a good label for exiled, banished convicts—and, somewhat to my surprise—it turns out that it is still used in that way. Although, I must confess that I suspect this is a rare usage, employed only by those with sufficient historical knowledge to have heard of Botany Bay. Still, even if only for that few, it is still our name, and it is being more widely used. Which is excellent.