There are a couple of uh-ohs related to that post. First, your humble blogger apparently did not dig back far enough. Sure, we (eventually) got to the fact that shambles=slaughterhouse, but where did the word really come from?
According to AWAD, "shambles" actually traces its roots back to the Latin scamnum, which mean "footstool, low bench" or something like that. Gradually this evolved into a word meaning "vendor's table" and then "butcher's table". It's quite interesting, if somewhat horrific to contemplate how the word came to take on its destructive, chaotic current meaning.
The second, uh oh, though, is surprisingly AWAD's, not mine. It uses this sentence as an example: "The program aims to rebuild a system in shambles before nearly 4,000 schools were destroyed."
($2 Billion Sought to Overhaul Ruined Haiti Schools; Associated Press; May 15, 2010.)
Now, according to my sources, "in shambles" is wrong. It should be something more like "a system that was a shambles". So does usage override correctness? What say you?
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Personally, in this case I'm voting for correctness just because I have more fun saying "that was a shambles" than I do "that was in shambles". I've also picked up saying "how shambolic", and getting a funny look from a friend. All in all, my preference has nothing to do with what's proper, but more my own taste. :)
ReplyDeleteGlenna, you are doing much better at inserting 'shambolic' into a sentence than I am at this point. But then again, I haven't come across any shambles lately either.
ReplyDeleteI like the progression, though. A little table or low bench turns into a butcher's table then slaughterhouse and thus into metaphor and finally wins its laurels and ends up as slang. Shambolic!
I feel for Peter...
ReplyDeleteI know. Maybe he won't check in on this one. It might just be the final straw
ReplyDeleteOh, and since we have you here, does "scamnum" end up contributing to modern day Italian in any way?
Yes, the word "scanno" has still pretty much the same meaning of scamnum.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDelete"In shambles" is wrong, but says who?
ReplyDeleteUsage does not trump correctness, it is correctness. Repeat a mistake often enough, and it becomes correct. Usage is not like a game, with codified rules.
You will notice that the example you quoted was from a journalistic account. You may remember, too, that I have sounded off from time to time about the death of copy editing and a possible resultant effect on the language.
Notice I said effect and not decline. Whether this means our civilization is going to hell, I don't know. But it is a sign of change.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Yes, it was the journalistic aspect of the quote that I think we both thought would be the part that bothered you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification on usage and correctness. Considering the very wandering path the word shambles has already taken, I suppose it's just doing its own thing and not a sign of decline at all.
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ReplyDeleteWell, to what extent is English or any other language a living thing, and to what extent is it an archive?
ReplyDeleteBack when a shambles was a living presence in most people's lives, they'd have had no trouble recognizing the metaphor and using the word correctly. Today, when almost no one knows what "a shambles" is, with no examples before it, the mind understandably falls back on more usual patterns of forming expressions. Hence, "in shambles.
I don't much like this, and there is something to be said in favor of conservatism (or is ot convervativism?) in such matters, but it's a fact, and it's understandable.
It's funny, but I am kind of inclined to like this kind of mistake. I have a lot of pet peeves about words, but they tend to be when I hear everyone picking up the same buzz words, or for some reason, abbreviation. "Call me on my cell", for instance, used to bug the hell out of me. Now, I don't really notice it. It's a case of familiarity not breeding contempt, I guess.
ReplyDelete"Cell" as a short form for "cell phone" gets on my nerves because cell has a specific meaning in cellular communications. But most people don't know that, I think, nor do they need to. Hence the new meaning of "cell."
ReplyDeleteI also hated "handheld" as a synonym for "handheld computer," but that never caught on. The brand names of Palm Pilot and the BlackBerry took over.
Cellular communications...oh dear. More grist for the mill here, I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteI kind of like what I think is the predominant British version: "Call me on my mobile" seems apt enough.
I wonder if the echo of 'self' in 'cell' is what gets my goat. It might be.
It could have been worse. I was going to write "cellular telephony."
ReplyDeleteA cell, as I understand it, is the area covered by each individual tower, and a cell phone works because the system passes the user from cell to cell as he or she is on the move.
But yes, I like "mobile" better.
Back when a shambles was a living presence in most people's lives, they'd have had no trouble recognizing the metaphor and using the word correctly. Today, when almost no one knows what "a shambles" is, with no examples before it, the mind understandably falls back on more usual patterns of forming expressions. Hence, "in shambles.
ReplyDeleteI just had to say this to you two times and now you're passing it as a personal reflection. Ever thought of a career in politics?
Handheld perhaps didn't catch on, but laptop?
And what about blog as abbreviation of weblog?
Shouldn't it be wlog?
v-word: binge
Good point about laptop and blog, Marco. I don't remember having any particular aversion to them when I heard them, but I still know enough people who are fairly mystified by what a blog is, and find the name sort of cartoonish and suspicious. And it's funny that laptop stuck, because people generally don't seem to use them that way, though of course can.
ReplyDeleteMarco, you may have said this to me a couple of times, but criminy, I think about this sort of thing every day. It's common sense, really. Besides, I never said I like "in shambles" or that I won't correct it when editing a piece of copy.
ReplyDeleteLaptop caught on, though I'm not a fan of the expression. I wonder why I have this animus against adjectives standing in for the nouns they modify.
"Blog" is like "copter," I suppose. Ease of pronunciation trumps "logical" abbreviation. That makes sense, too. And I'm not stealing it from you.
Seana. I find "blog" cartoonish and suspicious. I sometimes call my blog a Web site, or site (now, there'a an interesting usage, "site" for something that has no material existence). And I sometimes prefer to say that l write about crime fiction rather than that I blog about it. Snobbery, perhaps, but accurate.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
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ReplyDeleteI find the contraction of weblog into blog amusing. But I don't think I ever say "I blogged about it", as many would. I'd say, I wrote about it on my blog, or I saw it on his blog or something like that. Or at least I think that's what I do. Don't know what my aversion to blog as a verb is about really.
ReplyDeleteMillions and millions of speakers of a language, and not all will accept and use new words and expressions at the same time, as Marco probably reflected some time ago in a thought that I am unconsciously stealing.
ReplyDeleteEditions of P.G. Wodehouse will put an apostrophe in 'phone and pro' because the abbreviated forms had not yet gained full acceptance and respectability. And books in the earlier part of the twentieth century, at least British ones, will append to to telephone when the word is a verb, as in "I will telephone to you tomorrow." If I had been born a few decades earlier, I can well imagine myself sneering and fulminating at the barbarous "I'll phone you tomorrow."
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
And now, a participle!
ReplyDeleteShambling towards Hiroshima
(I guess the title's a play on Slouching Towards Bethlehem)
Unless shamble as a verb is a portmanteau of shuffle and amble.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, shambling seems to be just another path taken from that original shambles or butcher's bench, at least according to the Online Etymological dictionary, which makes the case that the awkward, shuffling gate comes either from the splay-legged table or the way one was forced to sit astride it. (Kind of makes me want to see one in use in one of those re-enactment villages, though as its a butcher's bench, maybe not.)I had thought shambling might just be a mistake following from a mistake, but apparently not, and apparently it's not recent either. Merriam-Webster giving a date as early as 1592.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the OED has on shamble as a verb. And I wonder to what extent a word's acceptance and even meaning will be influences by words of a similar sounds: shamble, shuffle, amble, ramble, stumble, and so on.
ReplyDeleteJust noticed "guesstimate" used on the news in exactly that sort of way tonight.
ReplyDelete0h, geez. I hate that one.
ReplyDelete0h, geez. I hate that one.
ReplyDeleteWhy? It's a perfectly locical portmanteau. You use it when you have not enough information for a careful estimate, and yet you feel you can make more than a blind guess.
I agree with both of you. It's a nice portmanteau word, but it also can be irritating because it sounds too cute or flip or sloppy or something.
ReplyDelete0h, geez. I hate that one.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
Because. Oddly enough, brunch never bothered me. But maybe it will start to.
it also can be irritating because it sounds too cute or flip
That's right!==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Nice use of "shambles" in the Guardian's as-it-happened report on today's England-Germany game at the World Cup:
ReplyDelete"20 mins: KLOSE'S NUMBER 12!!! Germany 1-0 England. Dear Lord. Neuer hoofs a long ball upfield, straight down the middle. Terry is off on holiday, Upson was standing wondering whether to go with him, maybe stow away in his suitcase, and so Klose simply romps down the middle, sliding in and poking a right-foot shot past the advancing James and into the bottom-right corner. That is as simple a goal that's been scored in the entire history of All Football. What a defensive shambles."
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
And another:
ReplyDelete33 min: ANOTHER GOAL!!! Germany 2-0 England. And another defensive shambles
Actually, that first is a very nice paragraph. And funny too, unless you happen to be England. I think the shambles on the field is nothing to the shambles those defensive players are going to find waiting for them off it. Possibly not so metaphoric.
ReplyDeleteThose as-it-happens commentaries are often similarly enjoyable even if one is not a soccer fan. The English enjoy a reputation for showing off their wit, a fortunate thing in this case.
ReplyDeleteThey look enjoyable, but following a game I wouldn't watch otherwise just for the witty commentary is going a bit far, even for me.
ReplyDeleteThe Internet lets you enjoy the wit minus the game!
ReplyDeleteV-word: logic
Logical yes, but I think a few choice gems would be enough for me. Although I have to say that watching the Oscars was much more enjoyable followed on the internet. I think it was on Slate. Wouldn't do it any other way in the future.
ReplyDeleteYes, perhaps the Internet has some potential, after all.
ReplyDeleteI think eventually it may catch on.
ReplyDeleteWell ... maybe.
ReplyDeleteFrim the Guardian:
ReplyDelete"The French Football Federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes says it is his 'duty' to resign after France's shambolic World Cup showing "
For anyone who has followed this World Cup even casually, no further illustration is necessary.
To excoriate the French with British slang is truly adding insult to injury.
ReplyDeleteYes, even the casual non-observer of the World Cup is aware that France is undergoing a crisis of faith. I still don't actually understand why football tranfers into government crises, but I see that it does.
Did you see where Sarkozy even called in Thierry Henry (the player whose illegal handling of the ball deprived Ireland of a place in the World Cup) for a conference? Can you imagine such a thing happening in Ameerica?
ReplyDeleteAnd now the president of soccer's world governing body is threatening to kick France out because of political interference. This story just keeps getting better.
I did happen to read about Thierry Henry for some reason. And I also came across this interesting piece by Daniel Drezner about his reluctance to see America go totally wild about soccer, partly because of the meltdown of the French leadership.
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ReplyDeleteI don't think he need fear that an American philosopher will be taken seriously in mass American media any time soon.
ReplyDeleteAn entertaining variant from -- where else? -- the Guardian:
ReplyDelete"Nigerians found a penny when their last president died and now all term long they'll have Goodluck. And that's bad news for the country's footballers. Or maybe it isn't. Because in addition to being president and the holder of degrees in fisheries and philosophy, Dr Goodluck Jonathan is a qualified zoologist – and has diagnosed the Super Eagles as suffering from chronic shamblesness."
Shamblesness might be going a bit too far.
ReplyDeleteAt first I was trying to tie his statement to the fact of his being a zoologist, but I guess it actually wasn't a diagnosis.
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ReplyDeleteShambleness is a shambolic word, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteShambleness I could almost buy, but shamblesness is really just a bit too awkward.
ReplyDeleteYou have tapped something deep in the Anglo-American zeitgeist. One of the Guardian's minute-by-minute reports on the World Cup today included a lengthy discussion of the extent to which shambles and shambolic had or lacked currency in American speech.
ReplyDeleteYou heard it here first, Peter. Or actually, I guess you heard it there first. In any case, I wonder if, as soccer seems destined to grow bigger here, 'shambolic' will finally leap the gap.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if anyone will see this way down here, but I'm pleased to say that Harper Lee, or at least her editors got 'shambles' right. Here's the relevant passage from To Kill a Mockingbird, about a neighbor's yard, the morning after a fire.
ReplyDelete"Miss Maudie puzzled me. With most of her possessions gone and her beloved yard a shambles, she still took a lively and cordial interest in Jem's and my affairs."
Shows how much things have gone to hell in the lst fifty years.
ReplyDeleteShows how much things have gone to hell in the lst fifty years.
ReplyDeleteYup.
ReplyDeleteThe rational, calm side of me says that we are witness to a small piece of language change since "To Kill a Mockingbird." But the storming, self-pitying romantic side doesn't have to listen to the rational, calm side.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's good to have both. Especially in the current climate.
ReplyDeleteLet me work on a third, practical side, and I'll get back to you.
ReplyDeleteIf you can market the practical side, I'd be interested in buying stock.
ReplyDeleteKnowing how to market a practical side would constitute evidence of a practical side, so if I had it, I'd already know how to market it.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah. Right.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I have just spent four days with my brother, decidedly the practical one in the family, so I argue from an especially strong position.
ReplyDelete