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| volume 1 |
I have a fascination with words and definitions. When I am researching the titles and accompanying writing for my works, I refer to several dictionaries. I have favourites which are old and out of date – Nuttall’s Standard Dictionary from 1906, and others, including technical dictionaries. I look up words I have in mind, then related words, then concepts and slivers of meanings about the piece. I end up with glints and aspects of meaning – I am seeking to extrapolate choice words which convey layers of meaning, and which encapsulate the basic job of saying what that work is about. I especially like dated and redundant definitions, because they often uncover a deeper layer of truth about the word – which is after all, a vehicle for an idea.
Often the language is enjoyably flowery, or laden with judgement.
Older definitions are not completely superseded by newer, as while language changes, the more fundamental meaning still remains – for example before the current age, digital was defined as pertaining to the fingers or to digits. As an artist working in digital media, this underlying truth adds a layer of nuance I can employ in some way.
Often we have the revelation that a word we regularly use has a completely different meaning to what we intended – common examples are precocious and tragedy. Pedantry aside, the definition of words includes shades of mismeaning and intent. Language is not maths, and even maths is not purely an exercise in accuracy.
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| volume 2 |
21st March 2011
"pedantry aside"???? We LOVE pedantry in this house!!
ReplyDelete(I know it's wiki, but...)
The English language word "pedant" comes from the French pédant (used in 1566 in Darme & Hatzfeldster's Dictionnaire général de la langue française) or its older mid-15th Century Italian source pedante, "teacher, schoolmaster". (Compare the Spanish pedante.) The origin of the Italian pedante is uncertain, but multiple dictionaries suggest that it was contracted from the mediaeval Latin pædagogans, present participle of pædagogare, "to act as pedagogue, to teach" (Du Cange).[1] The Latin word is derived from Greek παιδαγωγός, paidagōgós, παιδ- "child" + ἀγειν "to lead", which originally referred to a slave who escorted children to and from school but later meant "a source of instruction or guidance".[2][3]
And I always thought it had it's roots in the Latin for "foot"!