Pedants' Paradise

[french frank]

Splurged out on the latest - fourth - edition (2015) of Fowler's MEU. Edited by Jeremy Butterfield, it looks to have bags of character (which means some people will hate it but it made me laugh). On my favourite show-off word 'octothorp': 'You may briefly impress some of your friends by telling them the technical term for this symbol [hash] is octothorp.' So, only some of my friends, and then only briefly

[gurnemanz]

Splurged out on the latest - fourth - edition (2015) of Fowler's MEU. Edited by Jeremy Butterfield, it looks to have bags of character (which means some people will hate it but it made me laugh). On my favourite show-off word 'octothorp': 'You may briefly impress some of your friends by telling them the technical term for this symbol [hash] is octothorp.' So, only some of my friends, and then only briefly

Ordered. (hoping to maintain pedantic credentials)

[jean]

I had never heard of Jeremy Butterfield so I looked him up. Here are some credentials.

But who needs a fourth edition? Who needs anything beyond the first, echt Fowler?

[french frank]

But who needs a fourth edition? Who needs anything beyond the first, echt Fowler?

Anyone who is interested in any of the linguistic issues which have cropped up since Fowler's day. Even he intended it as a reference tool for Modern English Usage which hardly applies to a work published almost 100 years ago.

(I already have the 2nd edition which will make an interesting companion work).

[jean]

I wasn't all that happy with Gowers, but I was even less happy with Burchfield.

[french frank]

I wasn't all that happy with Gowers, but I was even less happy with Burchfield.

What about the discussion on more recent points - the stuff of what gets discussed on this thread?

[jean]

We can do that ourselves - we don't need Burchfield.

[french frank]

We can do that ourselves - we don't need Burchfield.

There's no answer to that . I'll settle down with my new edition with great delight!

[jean]

[Sydney Grew]

. . . my favourite show-off word 'octothorp' . . .

I have seen that "word" before, but the interesting thing about it is that it is not listed in the OED, so we must conclude that it is not a word at all but a mere transatlanticism. . . . And indeed, that conclusion is borne out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_...mes_in_English - Something about telephonic engineers in 1964.

We may then, confident of its illegitimacy, surrender the combination "octothorp(e)" to the outer darkness.

[jean]

I have seen that "word" before, but the interesting thing about it is that it is not listed in the OED...

It is now.

octothorp, n.

Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈɒktə(ʊ)θɔːp/ , U.S. /ˈɑktəˌθɔ(ə)rp/ , /ˈɑkdəˌθɔ(ə)rp/

Forms: 19– octothorp, 19– octothorpe.

Etymology: Origin uncertain; perhaps < octo- comb. form + the surname Thorpe (compare thorp n.: see note below).
The term was reportedly coined in the early 1960s by Don Macpherson, an employee of Bell Laboratories:
1996 Telecom Heritage No. 28. 53 His thought process was as follows: There are eight points on the symbol so octo should be part of the name. We need a few more letters or another syllable to make a noun... (Don Macpherson..was active in a group that was trying to get Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals returned from Sweden). The phrase thorpe would be unique.

For an alternative explanation see quot. 1996*; in a variant of this explanation, the word is explained as arising from the use of the symbol in cartography to represent a village.

For a different explanation from a former employee of Bell Laboratories, arguing that the word is a completely arbitrary formation (and that it originally had the form octatherp) see D. A. Kerr ‘The ASCII Character Octatherp’ in http://doug.kerr.home.att.net (2006).



*1996 New Scientist 30 Mar. 54/3 The term ‘octothorp(e)’ (which MWCD10 dates 1971) was invented for ‘#’, allegedly by Bell Labs engineers when touch-tone telephones were introduced in the mid-1960s. ‘Octo-’ means eight, and ‘thorp’ was an Old English word for village: apparently the sign was playfully construed as eight fields surrounding a village.

[ahinton]

I have seen that "word" before, but the interesting thing about it is that it is not listed in the OED, so we must conclude that it is not a word at all but a mere transatlanticism. . . . And indeed, that conclusion is borne out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_...mes_in_English - Something about telephonic engineers in 1964.

We may then, confident of its illegitimacy, surrender the combination "octothorp(e)" to the outer darkness.

There are three issues here.

Firstly, I don't think that "transatlanticism" is a sufficiently clear epithet for this word, since its apparent origin in Bell Laboratories as representative of an ASCII character confines it to the United States of America, whereas anything of truly "transatlantic" origin would suggest that it might come from any of the countries with an Atlantic seaboard to their east, which means Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and all the island countries of the Caribbean as well as USA.

Secondly, even if the term were to be accepted as such a "transtlanticism", why and how might that demote its status as a word? It is indeed perhaps odd that it has yet to be included in OED, but that's a matter for the work's editors who must spend many thousands of hours in the preparation of each edition in adding (and occasionally removing) words alone, but the half century or so length of its history and usage clearly gives the lie to any "illegitimacy".

Thirdly, for the umpteenth time, who are "we" in this context"? - why and on what grounds would "we" be "confident of its illegitimacy"? (and, for that matter, what of the confidence or othewise of those who do not belong to this "we"?) - and on whose authority might "we" "surrender (it) to the outer darkness"?

P.S. I've just read jean's helpful counter to your assertion that it's not in OED; I had already checked mine where it is not to be found either in the main volumes or the supplementary ones, but as it's the 1978 edition I can only conclude that jean's must be more recent (and indeed perhaps current) and that "we" (by which I specifically mean you and I) must each have outdated ones. I must say that the "English village" origin's rather interesting and something of a foil for the notion of "transatlanticism", legitimate or otherwise in the context.

All that said, I have to admit that it is not a word that I've ever used for the hash sympbol, hash being rather easier.

I must also say that the introduction of touch tone in phones was a boon indeed; I can still recall how I loathed those wretched dials and the sheer waste of time and margin of error for which their existence was responsible in those now thankfully far-off days of Strowger-based telephone exchanges (whose inventor, the American Almon Brown Strowger, died as long ago as 1902, for heaven's sake)! While on etymological matters, though, I find it odd that the word "dial" nevertheless survived for so long in telephonic contexts at and even beyond a time when actual dials on landline phones were mercifully being "surrendered to outer darkness" where they undoubtedly belonged. It remained in common parlance well after the establishment of those now themselves antediluvian terms STD (Standard Trunk Dialling), IDD (International Direct Dialling) and DDI (Direct Dialling Inward); "Standard Trunk Dialling"? - using one's index finger to call an elephant?

Now I think I'll go and have a listen to the C octothorp minor quartet...

[jean]

I quote from the online version (you don't think I typed all that out letter by letter, do you?)

[mangerton]

I have just heard the sports correspondent on the R4 news say that for the first time the women's boat race is to receive "the same parity" as the men's.

[ahinton]

I quote from the online version (you don't think I typed all that out letter by letter, do you?)

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but that's what I'd assumed you to have done, although that alone does not necessarily mean that you don't possess the current or previous editions in paper format, from which it might be of passing interest to discover at what stage the word was first introduced into it...