Thoughts on $10 Words

Eleanor Catton's essay at Metro .....On Literature and Elitism inspired an article at Salon by Laura Miller last week: Is the Literary World Elitist?
Laura Miller's piece, and comments beneath it, in turn inspired this post.

Sidelight:
Eleanor Catton, by the way is author of The Luminaries. From Wikipedia
The book was described as "a dazzling feat of a novel" by The Observer. It is unusual for being organized … according to astrological principles, so that characters are not only associated with signs of the zodiac, or the sun and moon (the "luminaries" of the title), but interact with each other according to the predetermined movement of the heavens, while each of the novel's 12 parts decreases in length over the course of the book to mimic the moon waning through its lunar cycle.

The thrust of both articles, and most commentary on them, is the question of whether use of uncommon words in writing - particularly, I guess, in fiction rather than non-fiction or textbook style writing - can indicate elitist tendencies. Uncommon words. Ernest Hemingway called them "ten dollar words": “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”

In the articles linked, a word under scrutiny as being of the 10-dollar variety was "crepuscular". If a word is unfamiliar to the reader would the thing to do be to look it up online or in a dictionary if one is to hand? Or decide meaning from context - not always accurate, could be misleading? Or to sigh, read on until another unfamiliar word appears then declare the author "elitist"?

I am, I think, far from elitist in this regard (I could possibly be accused of that in other regards, but we all could in some sphere). I did know the word's meaning: relating to or resembling twilight, from schoolgirl French: crépuscule = twilight. Why wouldn't I know that? When I first ventured online more than 12 yrs ago I chose a screen name: Twilight, and it was long before those films about vampires were even a twinkle in the producer's eye. I did originally actually ponder whether to call myself Crépuscule, but that would undoubtedly have smacked of elitism !

Another word mentioned as unfamiliar to some people, "lupine" = wolfish, like a wolf. Again, schoolgirl Latin would come to my rescue if I encountered the word lupine in a novel. Not everyone had the benefit (or otherwise) of studying that dead language though, but it doesn't make me elitist because I did. I'd never use the word myself, in writing or conversation, in spite of knowing its meaning, that could make me elitist.

Everyone has a different range of vocabulary, assembled throughout life from widely differing sources and experiences. While I value simple over embellishment, always, simple for me, at times, could translate as over-embellished by someone with different experiences. I've been known to use words with which my husband isn't familiar, not because he isn't well-read or educated, but because I lived most of my life in England, he in the USA.

So....it's not easy to distinguish between elitist use of words and use of words which come quite naturally to one person but are unfamiliar to another, in conversation anyway. In writing for a, potentially vast, unknown public, are things a wee bit different? Should the writer consider more carefully the words used? I'd say so, but only up to a point. There are some words known mainly to those with the background of a literary academic. If such a literary academic were to decide to write a novel, they would be well-advised to step away from the ivory towers of academia and consider the words used from a place nearer to the ground - that is if the would-be author wishes to sell books to an audience wider than a minority of fellow academics.

Back to 10 dollar words. I still remember, after more years than I care to count, a sentence taught to me by the owner of a small sweet shop (candy store in American) near my childhood home. This is it:

Gastronomic satiety admonishes me that I have come to the ultimate stage of deglutition consistent with dietetic integrity.

Translation: I've had enough to eat/I am full.

I've just started to re-read a novel I first read back in the 1960s, it's by one of my favourite authors, Howard Spring. I've since read almost every novel he wrote. In the early chapters of this, his first novel, Shabby Tiger, I came across the word "aguish". Hmm, I thought. That looks odd, wonder if it's a misprint. From context I gathered it related to some kind of discomfort. I pondered. Maybe it's derived from the word ague - an illness. I read on, but later looked up the word online.

aguish: of or relating to a fever with successive stages of fever and chills, esp when caused by malaria......of or relating to a fit of shivering.

Another formerly unfamiliar word is now in the drawer marked "familiar" in the memory card-index of my brain.

Other points brought up in the articles and commentary first mentioned in this post related to amateur book reviews found at Amazon or Goodreads websites. Exchanges struck me as petty snobbery rather than anything truly elitist, and really just another version of "team-syndrome", a phenomenon very common in the USA: Seahawks/Brocos, Democrats/Republicans, Leno/Letterman, East/West, North/South, cool/uncool, urban/rural, Woody/Dylan. In this instance it was intellectuals, pseudo intellectuals, or would-be intellectuals against the more average, populist, non-academic mortals who like to read authors who entertain and transport them, in a way each reader finds entertaining and transporting.

Of Lawyers, Critics, Snobs, & Astro signs.

Some people like to say, recalling an out of context quote from Shakespeare's Henry VI (Part 2), that if they ruled the world one of the first things they'd do would be to hang all the lawyers. In Shakespeare's tale the words come from Dick the Butcher, a follower of anarchist Jack Cade, described as "the head of an army of rabble and a demagogue pandering to the ignorant," who sought to overthrow the government. In context the words are not a dig against lawyers. The point made in the play is that a sure way to chaos and tyranny would be to remove the guardians of independent thinking, the lawyers.

Lawyers I met, and worked with in my former life in England, were all men and women of integrity, as it happens. Anyway, if I ruled the world the lawyers would be safe but I'd - well, not hang because I'm against capital punishment - but I'd deport to an uninhabited and not particularly hospitable desert island ....all professional art and music critics

Why is it that in music and art middle of the road, easily understood, easily appreciated material is considered "uncool", and routinely bashed by professional critics and those who like to feel superior to other mortals?

What makes inaccessible art and music "cooler" or more sophisticated than easy looking or listening works? I smell an element of snobbery or elitism. The need to feel more educated, more sophisticated, better informed....better than.

Snob? Origin of word? From Word Detective:

Unfortunately, no one knows for certain. We do know that "snob" first appeared in English around 1781 meaning, of all things, a shoemaker, or sometimes a shoemaker's apprentice. One authority (Hugh Rawson, in his book "Wicked Words") raises the possibility that "snob" may have begun as essentially the same word as "snub," which came, interestingly, from an Old Norse word meaning "to cut short." Perhaps, notes Rawson, the "snob" (shoemaker) was so called because he "snubbed" (cut) leather. Today, of course, snobs "snub," or cut short, the rest of us all the time.

Whatever its actual origin, by the late 18th century, "snob" had been picked up by university students in England, who used it to mean "townsman," as opposed to a "gownsman," or student. By the 1830s, "snob" was slang for an ostentatiously vulgar commoner, and in 1848 the novelist William Thackeray expanded the term yet further in his "Book of Snobs," where he used the term to denote a kind of grasping, pretentious social climber. And by the early 20th century, "snob" was being used in its modern sense to describe a person who derives satisfaction from disdaining those of lower social rank

I chatted on the matter of art and music snobbery with my husband who contributed the anomaly that when many people like and enjoy something, it's considered to be "a good thing", yet easy listening music and illustrative or realist art are enjoyed by a majority but still instantly put down by those who say they know better. He also pointed out (ahem) that some music and art, "of course", require more thought than other types (ahem). Do I have an incipient critic on my hands here? Best close that conversation; more on this later.

Once upon a time it was thought that people in the USA were less prone to snobbery than those in the UK and Europe. This idea's origin is probably based on the thought that a monarchy, whether one still standing or one gone the way of all flesh through revolution, underpins or underpinned an eschelon of aristocracy, which in turn spawned a sharp class consciousness, from which root springs snobbery and elitism.



Snobbery can now be found in all spheres of life: sport, music, art, literature, entertainment, food, wine, beer etc. etc. All it entails is a penchant for looking down on the tastes and preferences of others in an attempt to make oneself feel superior - about anything at all.

20th century astrologer C.E.O. Carter had this to say in his little book Encyclopedia of Psychological Astrology

"Snobbishness is characteristic of Leos and Capricorns who are still centred on the material aspects of things. It is probable that the better sort of Capricorn is conscious of, and a believer in, class distinctions, but is quite ready to pay each man his due according to his own view of what ought to be accorded to a man in such a position. This belief in the value of caste is part of the love of orderliness which Saturn gives; there is a feeling that every one has, and should have, his right place in life, and should keep there, unless he can raise himself by worth, expressed in such terms as Saturn can respect. The snobbishness of Leo is due to the enhanced idea of their importance which some members of that sign possess."

I get the gist of what Mr Carter wrote, and have to remember that he lived in a very different era from now, with different attitudes. I'm pretty sure that he would not tar all those with Sun in Capricorn or Sun in Leo with the same brush. He was using a kind of astro-shorthand, which those writing about astrology, in brief, fall into now and again, myself included. It's more accurate to think of the signs themselves rather than personifying them as "a Leo", "a Capricorn" - or if a sign needs to be personified I prefer to use, e.g. "a Leo-type".

Summer-born and winter-born people are likely to have some Leo and Capricorn planets in their charts. The key factor is how strong are those planets, what aspects are made, and from whence, and what kind of snobbery is involved. It's quite common for Sun Capricorns to have planets in adjacent sign Aquarius - probably the least likely sign to embrace class snobbery, though some extreme Aquarius-types do tend to think they know more than other mortals, and become elitists. Sun in Aquarius people often have Capricorn planets.....hmmmm.

Instead of wondering "am I (or is some other person) a snob", a better investigation would be to ask "what am I (or what are they) snobbish about?" This presupposes that each one of us has a whiff of snobbery within our personality; I suspect that we all do.

Putting up my own hand, I like to think that in general I'm not a snob, elegant accents aren't my thing, but sloppiness in writing, or crude vulgarity grates on me. In my younger dating days, if a would-be boyfriend was a sloppy speaker, unable to string a sentence together easily when writing, I'd turn up my snobby nose. Natal Mercury (planet of communication)in my chart is in Capricorn, ruled by Saturn, and is almost on the descendant, a strong position. One victory for Mr Carter's theory!

My husband feels much the same as I do about correct writing and speaking. He tells me that in his youth he made a point of training himself out of any regional accent he might have inherited. He has Mercury in Pisces, but conjunct Saturn, ruler of Capricorn. I have to suspect also (whispering).... that he's a teensy bit of a jazz snob. In his natal chart Saturn/Mercury sextiles his Venus(music)/Uranus conjunction in Taurus. He also has Moon and ascendant in Leo....nudge nudge, wink wink. Another tick for astrologer C.E.O. Carter!

Downton Abbey ~ Julian Fellowes

A new TV drama, Downton Abbey began a 4-episode run in the USA, on PBS, last weekend. I understand that it is currently being shown in the UK too, albeit in a rather longer version. It was thought that American audiences would balk at the UK version's rather more stately pace and emphasis on the archaic law of entail (estate inheritance), quite foreign to the USA. A foreshortened version of the series is fine by me. I can stand a slow-moving tale if written by an icon such as Charles Dickens or James Michener, this is not one of those, so will probably be better taken at a trot!

The series is in fact written by Julian Fellowes, a rather upper-clahhss actor/ screenwriter/director, soon to be a member of the House of Lords on the Conservative Party benches.


In a nutshell, Downton Abbey, set in the early 1900s in Yorkshire, England, tells the story of an aristocratic family who face future problems linked to inheritance laws, following the death of their only son, a passenger on the Titanic. They have 3 daughters but according to the then laws, women were not allowed to inherit an estate.




We are promised tales of love, betrayal, domestic politics, and the challenge of waves of incoming change bringing in feminism, socialism and other -isms which threaten to shatter a class system solidly in place for many centuries.

There are tales from both above and below stairs - the residents above, their army of servants below. The servants have their very own self-created class system, almost as insidious as that of their masters.



With better choice of TV programmes on Sunday evenings I'd have given this one a very wide berth. My husband usually enjoys anything at all from British TV, but I suspected this particular series might baffle him more than somewhat! It doesn't baffle me, it irritates - a lot. I'll probably continue to watch it all the same, at least it's set in Yorkshire, with a few Yorkshire accents (among the servants, of course) so it can't be all bad!

Why does it irritate me? It depicts everything I despise: the class system of Britain as was, the remnants of which survive to this day.

Before I lapse into soapbox mode, better have a look at the natal chart of Julian Fellowes, the series creator (photograph below). He was born in Cairo, Egypt on 17 August 1949, son of a diplomat.

His Leo Sun with 3 personal planets in Virgo nicely describes this actor-cum-writer.
Leo is traditionally the sign of show-biz; Virgo, ruled by Mercury is a writer's sign. I'd bet, too, that at the time he was born Moon was in Gemini, the other sign ruled by Mercury. At noon on the date of Fellowes' birth the Moon was in the last degrees of Taurus, ready to slip into Gemini at around 2.00 PM. Without a time of birth it's not possible to establish a rising sign or midheaven, which is a pity. I'd not be a bit surprised to find Leo rising....second choice, Taurus.




According to an October 2010 article in The Mail Online, "Julian Fellowes insists he's no snob... but would never dream of wearing jeans to lunch"
As to snobbery, the reader must draw their own conclusions - as I have done (wink).

Excerpt:

Now, the couple’s parties — often including world-famous actors and European aristocracy — are legendary. And it’s all good fun, so long as the rules are obeyed.
‘Julian doesn’t like jeans to be worn at lunch,’ says one guest. ‘His view is that casual clothes are acceptable, but jeans are always a no-no.

‘And if he’s denouncing some politician, or expounding on why the Falklands’ airport should be named after Louis XV’s mistress, you won’t get a word in. You have to hold your hand up and wait for permission to speak. Even his wife does this. Not that Emma is downtrodden — she’s the great-great-niece of Lord Kitchener of Khartoum.

.........‘Julian’s also superstitious. He won’t have 13 round the table. Once, their son Peregrine — now 19, and the godson of Princess Michael and Sir Anthony Hopkins — came home unexpectedly and would’ve been the 13th guest. He was made to eat in his room.’ And Emma is just as careful of social nuances. She reads all her husband’s manuscripts for errors. ‘Julian got a ticking off for a gaffe in one of his books,’ says a friend. ‘He described a marchioness wearing a silk dress at Ascot.

Emma told him, “Everyone knows you go to the designer Tomasz Starzewski

Snobs or not, manners do seem to obsess the couple. Julian once spent an interview demonstrating how socially inept it was to grasp one’s knife like a pencil, while Emma described the signs she uses to spot the nouveau riche. She said that the soup course was an unfailing test, and admitted she and Julian did award black marks afterwards if they spotted someone tipping the soup plate towards them.

And then there’s a right and a wrong way to leave the table. ‘I would hope never to judge somebody because they folded their napkin after dinner,’ Emma says. ‘But I’d never pretend I didn’t notice. Isn’t that awful?’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1322707/Downton-Abbey-creator-Julian-Fellowes-insists-hes-snob.html#ixzz1AgB9VzeJ

It's hard to differentiate between fact and Downton Abbey, is it not?!

Snobbery

Once upon a time it was thought that people in the USA were less prone to snobbery than those in the UK and Europe. I suppose this idea originated due to the fact that many European countries remain monarchies. A monarchy underpins an eschelon of aristocracy, which in turn used to spawn class consciousness and its close cousin snobbishness.

Snobbery isn't just related to bloodlines though. Snobbery can be found in many circles. Sport, music, art, literature, entertainment, food, wine, etc. etc. In a nutshell, snobbery entails looking down on others in an attempt to make oneself feel superior - about anything at all.

“True individualists tend to be quite unobservant; it is the snob, the would-be-sophisticate, the frightened conformist, who keeps a fascinated or worried eye on what is in the wind” said writer Louis Kronenberger.

C.E.O. Carter had this to say in his Encyclopedia of Psychological Astrology (and, for once, I have to remark critically, in places, on his words!)-

"Snobbishness is characteristic of Leos and Capricorns (tsk, tsk, Mr Carter - judging by Sun sign?)who are still centred on the material aspects of things. It is probable that the better sort of Capricorn (tsk tsk!)is conscious of, and a believer in, class distinctions, but is quite ready to pay each man his due according to his own view of what ought to be accorded to a man in such a position (erm....eh??) This belief in the value of caste is part of the love of orderliness which Saturn gives; there is a feeling that every one has, and should have, his right place in life, and should keep there, unless he can raise himself by worth, expressed in such terms as Saturn can respect.

The snobbishness of Leo is due to the enhanced idea of their importance which some members of that sign possess."

I do get the gist of what Mr Carter says, and I have to remember that he lived in a different era from me, with slightly different attitudes. I'm pretty sure that he would not tar all Sun Capricorns and Leos with the same brush, but was using a kind of shorthand, which those writing about astrology in brief fall into now and again (myself included).

Summer and winter born people are likely to have some Leo and Capricorn planets in their charts. The key factor is how strong are those planets, what aspects are made, and from whence, and what kind of snobbery?

Regarding Capricorn: it's quite common for Sun Capricorns to have planets in Aquarius - probably the least likely sign to embrace class snobbery, and vice versa -Aquarians often have Capricorn planets...so where does that leave us?

Instead of wondering "am I (or some other person) snobbish?", a better investigation would be "what am I (or you) snobbish about?" This assumes that each one of us has a whiff of snobbery somewhere within our personality.

I'd better put up my own hand to something here. I'd like to think that in general I'm not snobbish, but I guess I AM a bit snobbish about writing and speaking correctly. Not with an elegant accent - just correctly. In my younger dating days, if a would-be boyfriend was a sloppy speaker and unable to string a sentence together, I'd turn up my snobby nose. In my natal chart Mercury (planet of communication)is in Capricorn, ruled by Saturn and almost on the descendant, so in a strong position. One victory for Mr Carter, then!

HeWhoKnows feels much the same as me about correct writing and speaking. He has Mercury in Pisces, but it is conjunct Saturn, ruler of Capricorn. I have to suspect also (whispering) that he's a leeetle bit of a music/jazz snob, and in his natal chart Saturn/Mercury sextiles his Venus(music)/Uranus conjunction in Taurus. He also has Moon and ascendant in Leo....nudge nudge, wink wink. Another tick for Mr Carter!

I found this video on YouTube. "How to be a Pretentious Snob". The presenter is just 19 - from New Zealand I think. It made me laugh. I reckon he has talent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORm4jhitPxM


(Illustration from http://www.georgwilliams.com/gallery_of_pets.htm)