Thursday, January 27, 2011

vitriol

I watched
the President's State of the Union speech a couple of nights ago, made to both houses of Congress, an audience which has been noticable in recent days for its lack of vitriol. After the very sad shootings in Tucson, Congress seems to be making a conscientious effort to tone down the rhetoric a bit. Whether this helps, even as a symbolic gesture, I don't know. I certainly hope so, but by nature I'm a skeptic.

However, the main reason for this blog is not to express ignorance about unknowable things, but to seize on things I think I understand but probably don't. Like most Americans watching the news of late, I have heard the word 'vitriol' used many times. I know that it means something like rancor, or bad temper, or something like that in this context. But it occured to me that I don't really know what vitriol is in itself. It sounds a bit like alcohol or ethanol, so is it a word for a physical substance that has tranferred gradually to a more metaphoric meaning, or what exactly?


Vitriol, or at least oil of vitriol, is basically  a concentrated sulphuric acid. Although our metaphoric sense attaches to its corrosive effect, the quality that gave it its name is its glassy quality, which goes back to the Latin for glass, 'vitrium'.





You never know exactly what you're going to turn up when you start these kinds of researches on the internet. So of course, I've saved the best for last...

17 comments:

  1. I know, right? I especially love the audience reactions...

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's acually not such a bad song. I totally hate that word now. One of my bigger pet peeves is when the media beats a catch phrase or word to death. It happens all the time in the coorporate world. Me and some of my co-workers have had plenty of Bullshit Bingo challenges during meetings to spice things up.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm with you on the catch phrase hate, Sean. Even seemingly innocuous ones like "I referenced that" and "going forward" drive me crazy. It's amazing how much of this cant filters down even into a small business.

    The worst of course is when you catch yourself using such a phrase yourself.

    Yeah, I like the song too, although I don't really understand it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Reference" as a verb. "Roll out" instead of introduce. "Going forward." "Thank you so much" instead of "thank you." "Would you like a XXXX today?" Instead of "Would you like a XXXX?" "Go viral."
    ======================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nice examples, Peter. And presented with vitriol as well!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I was going to include text as a verb, except that that usage follows the same pattern as call, which only gradually came to stand alone for telephone call or the act of making such a call. Read fiction from before, say, 1940, and you’ll get characters saying things like, “I will telephone to you.”

    I still hate text as a verb, though.

    My v-word, so help me God, is bible
    ======================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  7. I suppose 'bible' should keep us all on the straight and narrow here. I'm not sure text is the same as call, though. Wasn't call already a verb before the telephone? I don't think text was.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Call" surely was a verb before the telephone was invented (The biblical book Leviticus is called in its original Hebrew va-Yikrah, which "and he called.”) But, faced with this new phenomenon of telephone communication, people had to come with a noun to describe the act of engaging in such communication. People today made up a new word. People back then used an old word a new way. These processes seem similar to me.

    I also hate messaging.
    ======================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  10. 'Texting' doesn't actually bother me much, perhaps because its a new phenomenon and perhaps because it's a fairly truncated form of language anyway.

    But no one says, messaging, do they? They say, IMing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. People used to say "messaging," though not necessarily about text messages. It could refer to sending electronic messages on a company internal e-mail system -- as it does at my newspaper, unfortunately.

    V-word: maling. OMG! LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  12. BG, ITYGI!

    Yeah, I made that one up...

    ReplyDelete
  13. I don't even like WTF, though I have a certain effection for the expression it stands for.
    ==========================
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  14. I don't know if I like or dislike those abbreviations, but I never use them.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thanks for the real definition.

    The video is hilarious!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. You're welcome, Kathleen. And yes, the video, I think, is worth the price of the ticket.

    ReplyDelete