In a recent post over on Adrian McKinty's blog , the word 'shibboleth' was mentioned in reference to some things the British hold dear. Once again, it's a word I can read well enough in a sentence, but couldn't use in one with any confidence without a little dictionary checking. (Yeah, I know--it gets old.)
I can understand it in a sentence because I can figure out the meaning from the context. But without that help, I wouldn't be sure if 'shibboleth' meant something more along the line of sacred cows or of taboos.
So what is a shibboleth, exactly? And where does the word hail from?
...Well, apparently I can't read it well enough in a sentence, because I have got it pretty wrong. At its most basic,'shibboleth' means a word that distinguishes one class, group or sect from another. The etymology apparently goes back originally to the Hebrew sibbolet, meaning 'torrent of water', which, according to the Free Dictionary, was used by the Gileadites as a kind of password against the Ephraimites, who couldn't pronounce the 'sh' sound. So it means a password, a catchword, but then extends on to mean a part of insider language that excludes others. Apparently the test is not only about pronunciation but about agreement with received wisdom. So it can also mean a slogan or rallying cry, but also often refers to an outmoded meaning.
No, I'm still not sure I would use it correctly in a sentence, but I'm also pretty clear that I might not be caught out by most if I didn't. Because an outworn slogan is surely in the eyes of the beholder, isn't it? To the insider, it's the received wisdom.
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I always thought of it as a synonyn for commonplace, but I guess it can mean "catchphrase" too:
ReplyDeleteshibboleth
1382, the Heb. word shibboleth "flood, stream," also "ear of corn," in Judges xii:4-6. It was the password used by the Gileadites to distinguish their own men from fleeing Ephraimites, because Ephraimites could not pronounce the -sh- sound. Figurative sense of "watchword" is first recorded 1638, and it evolved by 1862 to "outmoded slogan still adhered to." A similar test-word was cicera "chick pease," used by the Italians to identify the French (who could not pronounce it correctly) during the massacre called the Sicilian Vespers (1282).
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Thanks for elucidating this a bit further, Peter. I confess that the word is bit multivalent for me to really get a grasp of. And to make matters worse, there is still a part of my mind that, perhaps because of seeing this word most recently on Adrian's blog, will not quite let go of an image of a rugby playing team of Tweedledums and Tweedledees all tromping around carrying giant shibboleths, which my mind has fashioned into something like cudgels. Apparently the more I attempt to educate myself the further into darkness I fall.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I suppose an 'ear of corn' might do for a cudgel in a pinch... How does the word for torrent transform itself into 'an ear of corn'?
Seriously, though, what fascinates me most about the word is not its current usage, but this whole password sort of meaning. People make fun of the way other people pronounce things even now, but what if they massacred you for it? It's interesting that there's an an analogy in Italian.
Surely "Sicilian Vespers" is already the title of a mystery or spy novel, but if not, someone should grab this up and run with it.
Matters were even more confusing for me. We used to sing a song at Hebrew school, one of whose lines went: Shibloet ba-sadeh korah ba-ruakh, or a stalk of corn bends in the wind. That was the first I'd heard of the word, so I was confused when I first encountered its English meaning. I still am.
ReplyDeleteV-word is straight from a construction site: rebar
Modern day Hebrew songs about corn are certainly adding a new layer to all this. But a nice one. Far better than cudgels.
ReplyDeleteYet another word I've been misreading all these years. I'm glad I came here. I really do need to take the advice that every English teacher has ever offered and keep a dictionary on hand for when I'm reading. Context works sometimes, but I'm finding that more often than not defining by context doesn't quite capture the shades of meaning, the connotations, or the subtle nuances of language. Good post, Seanag.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by and reading the post, Brian! I think I would probably drive myself crazy trying to get deep into a novel if I felt compelled to open a dictionary every time I didn't totally understand something. But I do think certain questions sometimes remain and it's been interesting to write this blog in order to try and think about those, and to maybe just stop and ponder things a little more, rather than just rushing onward, figuring I'll catch on later.
ReplyDeleteSince you've dropped by, and as a Michael Forsythe/Adrian McKinty fan, you might enjoy the post I just wrote about DIWMB. Or at least it's sort of about DIWMB. It's here.
"Once again, it's a word I can read well enough in a sentence, but couldn't use in one with any confidence without a little dictionary checking."
ReplyDeleteI suppose psychologists or linguists must have thought about how we augment our vocabulary as adults. It's not a binary system, in which one either knows the word or one does not. There's an intermediate stage, the one you suggest, where one can read and understand a word without knowing fully how to use it correctly in a sentence.
I wonder if this is analogous to the phenomenon that non-native, non-fluent users of a language can read it more easily than speak it.
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"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Yeah, it's a wonder how we ever venture to say anything at all, once we're past the age of reason.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of those discussions that come up from time to time about slang, especially Australian, and its exportability to the rest of the English-speaking world. I enjoy the fun and the challenge of encountering new expressions and having to figure out their meanings from the context.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Yeah, I don't mind trying to just figure things out from context either, unless they are whole sentences from a foreign language, which is usually hopeless. The only thing about doing this blog, though, is that makes me realize that I'm not that good a guesser-- just as when I first got a computer, Spellcheck made me have to concede that I'm not that good a speller either, contrary to my previous conception of myself.
ReplyDeleteThat was extremely informative and interesting. I like the format of this blog so much that I'm following you to 1) confess my ignorance and 2) do something to lessen it.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sucharita! I'm going to be keeping up with your blog as well now.
ReplyDeleteActually, I seem to do a lot better at keeping up with other people's blogs than I do with my own...