Archaic words are making a comeback, thanks to hipsters' love of all things old. The Washington Post's wonkblog has an article examining how hipsters may be bringing back vintage language, and the effects it is having on modern culture. This may be a passing fad, as hipsters themselves are now making jokes about bespoke water; if they're not careful the charming anachronism may go mainstream and become unfit for hipster irony.
BTW, this submission was inspired by a comment thread here about craft/artisanal beers. Apparently, the old words are not just re-entering the hipsters' language but getting co-opted by marketers hoping to woo the hipster pocketbook. Some linguistic shift may result.
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How Hipsters May be Bringing Back Vintage Language
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @06:18AM
If you used old-timey terminology jokingly or seriously a few times, are you a hipster?
The resurgence of the word "smitten" does not prove the headline.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @02:00PM
"Smitten" went out of style? I don't believe that is true.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @06:48AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @08:52AM
Wankey shallow monied individuals who differentiate themselves from the flock by being part of a smaller inferior flock?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @01:13PM
People who adopt contrarian non-conformist behavior in order to differentiate themselves from the bulk of society.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @01:46PM
Technically, this is a "hipster" Slashdot. It is an endless quest to avoid the mainstream while feeling somewhat elitist, particularly by targeted conspicuous consumption and the living-out of mass-produced lifestyle fantasies provided by marketers.
(Score: 5, Funny) by aristarchus on Friday October 30 2015, @06:54AM
Many's the time I oft would say:
HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum,
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah,
oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!
Tres cool, bros!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mendax on Friday October 30 2015, @08:41AM
May Grendel come and eat you!
Actually, we can get just a wee bit older:
which is Schleicher's Fable [wikipedia.org], "The Sheep and the Horses", in the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European language.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday October 30 2015, @04:52PM
Wait... I think I remember that from my time at Miskatonic Elementary School.
Didn't it end with Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday October 30 2015, @06:51PM
Let's be perfectly clear about this: archaic and vintage language is cool and all hipster. Made up languages (c'mon, the proto-Indo-European only dates from 1868!) like Klingon and all those Tolkien made up, and those on Game of Thrones, are nerdy. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Oh, and Esperanto, too. So I say, "Pshaw!"
(Score: 2) by mendax on Saturday October 31 2015, @12:08AM
I wouldn't call Proto-Indo-European a "made up" language. It's based on some hard linguistic evidence of consonant changes, vowel shifts, and various other patterns that are known to have occurred. Sure, the linguists don't know just how correct they are because there is no written evidence of any Indo-European language that old. However, we do have written evidence of a very old, very archaic language that is still spoken today: Greek. Written Greek (in the form of Linear B) goes back about 3500 years and we know with certainty how it was pronounced 2700 years ago. Furthermore, while Greek pronunciation has changed over the millennia and the grammar has changed and simplified, it's still pretty much the same language as sung by Homer.
Let's also not forget Sanskrit, while not a living language is still a very old and quite primitive Indo-European language. Linguists know a lot about it.
So, while the development of Proto-Indo-European required some guessing, it's based upon some hard science.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday October 31 2015, @08:57AM
Perhaps, and forsooth, I did overstate the point. Mayhaps I intended to say that a "made-up" language is one for which we possess no extant text? More a Classicist approach than that of an archaeolinguist, but one I would stick to. Are you saying that the completely fantastic created languages do not follow rules of syntax, grammar, phonemes and semantics? Of course they do. They are freer in regard to those than someone trying to recreate a proto language, but the parameters (hey! I just used "parameters" in sentence! And I think is is correct usage! Do I get extra hipster points?) are the same. And, Sanskrit is far from a "primitive" language. Has cases no one has ever used, just in case the opportunity should come up. And Linear B? Much like Linear A, the bastardized accounting language of the Minoan civilization! All Cretans are liars! And it is true because one of them said so! So there! Minoan bull-riding Minotaur feeding bastards!
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday October 30 2015, @05:51PM
Remember, just bang the rocks together guys...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @09:14PM
DUMROMANIOMNESCAPITALISLITTERASSINEINTERVALLISUSIERANT
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Friday October 30 2015, @07:30AM
Ya Think?
Fad language seldom sticks around, but using it dates you as either a douchey hipster, or a late-to-the-party poser.
Bespoke, peruse, smitten and dapper are hardly "vintage" words any more than the word "word" is vintage. They aren't common, buy yet never fell out of usage. Any half way well read person would find them in recent works as well as much much older ones. Is that a new trend, just because somebody was so poorly read they actually made it out of the 7th grade without encountering those words?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Friday October 30 2015, @07:51AM
Bespoke, peruse, smitten and dapper are hardly "vintage" words any more than the word "word" is vintage. They aren't common, buy yet never fell out of usage. Any half way well read person would find them in recent works as well as much much older ones. Is that a new trend, just because somebody was so poorly read they actually made it out of the 7th grade without encountering those words?
I had the same thought, Frojack. I'd add that words such as 'bespoke', 'smitten' and 'dapper' are not just not vintage, rather they are in fairly common usage in the UK. Perhaps some Soylentils from across the pond could validate that (or call me an ass -- I'm used to both) for me.
It may *seem* to some that such words are uncommon, but that's much more likely (IMHO) because many people (Americans in particular) don't read books any more.
That's not to say I think that 'hipsters' (who or what ever they are -- I'm guessing they are those who waste their time following trends rather then creating their own ideas and practices?) read more books than any other group. More likely one of the 'cool' kids took an English lit class in college and thought such stuff would make them seem smarter and/or get them laid more often. I imagine it worked too.
And the 'hipsters' were duly impressed and expressed their hard-fought individuality by copying other people.
This is nothing new or interesting. Nor is it particularly newsworthy.
I guess I'm going to have to start submitting more often again. Sorry for being lax.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 30 2015, @01:31PM
'bespoke', 'smitten' and 'dapper' are anglicisms some throw into their speech to convey sophistication. It's not really different from earlier times like post-WWI America when people laced their expressions with French, or 19th century society (and, really, much longer than that) when people did the same with Latin and/or Greek phrases.
This current spate of terms does feel like the result of a drinking bet between hipsters over craft ales, in which they bet they could use social media to get other people to start using obscure, effete terms in everyday conversation.
Ah, but we got in our daily quotient of hipster mocking, and, really, isn't that what it's all about in the end?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday October 30 2015, @01:54PM
words such as 'bespoke', 'smitten' and 'dapper' are not just not vintage, rather they are in fairly common usage in the UK. Perhaps some Soylentils from across the pond could validate that
In use in the UK, not archaic, but not very common because (in the cases of bespoke and dapper) what they apply to is not very common; but they are exactly the right words when they are needed. Bespoke has an entirely practical meaning, and dapper is usually used positively. Smitten is usually used sarcastically, like "Why the hell is he smitten by that bitch?".
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 30 2015, @03:12PM
"bespoke" has always bothered me because it is so opaque etymologically speaking. I guess the way I sooth my bother is with the sense of "arrange", but it appears that bespoke has gone through a whole range of meanings, suggesting that it has always been a hipster tool.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bespoke [reference.com]
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday October 30 2015, @05:50PM
Bespoke : The word is odd - perhaps it originated that something is made to a spoken order.
In the link to "bespoke water" (I realise it's a spoof) the word "bespoke" is misused. It does not mean "superior"; it means made to a customer's order. Obvious example, as in your dictionary link, is clothing, particularly men's suits. A bespoke suit is one that you are measured for and you wait for it to be made. It is a practical matter, especially if you are a funny shape. You could say "made to order", but that is two extra syllables.
But there are other examples. I used to do cycle racing (Tour de France style) and most of us had bespoke bike frames - made to order by a myriad of small builders that had nothing to do with the mass-market makers like Raleigh (but Raleigh would have a small workshop making bespoke bikes for its own professional team. I had two bikes made this way and I gave the builders what was almost an engineering drawing of what I wanted.
Another example is English shotguns - Purdy of London make bespoke guns to fit your arm length and accomodate any other peculiarities you might have, like being right handed but with a blind right eye.
The word is not there for snobbishness; it has a practical meaning and use.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @05:38PM
I'm an American and I do occasionally use peruse in my everyday speech, as in "I will be over here perusing the electronics aisle for a bit". I know at least a few people who use smitten in everyday language. Dapper seems a bit old-fashioned to my ear but not that old. The only one of these that I have not used or heard others use is bespoke. *Shrug* Perhaps I just don't move in the right crowds. And, no, I'm not a hipster by any stretch of the imagination; I have no patience for those effete posers.
(Score: 1) by Corelli's A on Friday October 30 2015, @07:35AM
First parsed as "How Hipsters May be Bringing Back Vintage Luggage," and I thought, "portmanteau?" is that "vintage" now?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday October 30 2015, @12:33PM
However, the examples cited are not vintage words, they are all in my active vocabulary, and used fairly regularly. ("whilst", "amongst"??!?!? I use those every freaking day!) Perhaps language education standards have slipped in the last few decades, and these people think they're special just because they're better than their peers.
The vintage word that I do my best to keep alive is "yclept", and that is indeed marked "Arch." in the dictionary.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 30 2015, @01:34PM
That's a good one, as in, "a user 'yclept' FatPhil."
My favorite, thanks to H.P. Lovecraft, is "croodle."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday October 30 2015, @02:21PM
It could be because you've been alive since those words were commonly used : P
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday October 30 2015, @03:10PM
However, I'll add that in the UK, most of the example words are not considered unusual at all, it's not just me. Imagine if there was an article in The Reg about this - how the UK Hipster scene was starting to use archaic terms like "fall" (rather than "autumn"). Americans would rightly laugh their balls off at such silliness.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @10:41PM
That meaning of "fall" has, for as long as I can remember, been in common use in America. Examples:
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/fall-fashion/ [cosmopolitan.com]
http://www.vogue.com/12680368/top-trends-fall-2015-fashion-shows/ [vogue.com]
http://www.harpersbazaar.com/beauty/hair/g5455/fall-2015-hair-trends/ [harpersbazaar.com]
http://www.elle.com/fashion/trend-reports/news/g26017/the-complete-fall-2015-trend-guide/ [elle.com]
http://www.registrar.psu.edu/academic_calendar/Fall15.cfm [psu.edu]
"Bespoke" I just became aware of perhaps five years ago. In proletarian circles, we would often say "tailor-made", "custom-made" or just "custom"; to tart up an automobile is to "customize" it:
http://selvedgeyard.com/2009/11/22/ultimate-rock-n-roll-on-wheels-the-1970s-van-customization-craze/ [selvedgeyard.com]
http://mrkustom.com/blog/get-your-custom-led-door-projector/ [mrkustom.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 30 2015, @07:53AM
Take a look at women's fashions. Women can decide that something is "out" this year, and "in" next year. If you look at fashions throughout the 20th century, you'll see that many things have come and gone, come back after decades, only to be forgotten again. From my point of view, there is no rhyme nor reason. And, I suppose the same was true in centuries past, but we don't have photographic evidence of it happening.
Is language really any different?
Personally, I never had much time to think about "hip". I have my own language, built from several different environments. Military, construction, trucking, tech - some of my language has been picked up just from moving from one region to another.
Hipsters? People with to much time on their hands, trying to be "cool". Do they have any impact on real life? I don't think so. We've always had kids who talked weird just to distinguish themselves from the older generation. Think about women's fashions. New generation, "new" styles. But, you can only cut and sew fabric in so many ways, and you can only restructure language in so many ways.
It's all just a fad, and fifteen years from now, these "hipsters" will be aging old fools who are laughed at by today's toddlers.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @07:58AM
Hipsters? People with to much time on their hands, trying to be "cool".
Very cool language you have there, Runaway1956! You are _such_ a hipster! Oh, didn't you mean "too" for much time?
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Friday October 30 2015, @01:26PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @11:29PM
"Also." Sarah Palin
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Covalent on Friday October 30 2015, @09:47AM
I was cool with cool before it was cool.
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday October 30 2015, @05:54PM
I used to be with it, but then they changed what *it* was. Now what I'm with isn't *it*, and what's *it* seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you...
(Score: 1) by kazzie on Friday October 30 2015, @09:49AM
I'm a fan of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series (Master and Commander, et.al.), and re-read some every now and again. When I do so, I find some of my spoken language veers a few centuries.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 30 2015, @01:09PM
Do you find yourself oddly craving dishes with obscene names, such as "Spotted Dick" and "Toad-in-the-Hole?" Do you replace your stock phrases like "Move your ass!" with "With celerity, if you please?" Do you tell your doctor your weight in "stones?" Do you transpose obscure nautical terms like "leeward shore" onto your driving?
If so, you are not alone.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 30 2015, @02:39PM
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 30 2015, @03:17PM
Lobscouse and Spotted Dog: Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels: http://www.amazon.com/Lobscouse-Spotted-Dog-Gastronomic-Companion/dp/0393320944 [amazon.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 30 2015, @05:27PM
Interesting. What's the verdict, are they worth making, or are they merely fanciful names for "meat and potatoes?"
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 30 2015, @06:03PM
I only read it -- never cooked from it. I don't eat mammals so that is a limiting factor for me, but it is a fun book if you love the series because you get a better idea of what the characters were eating.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday October 31 2015, @03:12PM
Why no mammals? Is it a deeply-held grudge against dinosaurs [newscientist.com]? :-)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday November 01 2015, @09:13PM
Exactly. I am but a small cog in that war but I do my part, eating only vegetables, fish, and birds. Except octopi, to whom I've granted honorary mammal status.
(Score: 1) by donkeyhotay on Friday October 30 2015, @03:06PM
That's interesting. I'm glad someone else noticed the same effect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @11:14AM
'Hipster' for example. Used to apply to beat-era kids who dressed like the beatniks & were at least reasonable hip. Disappeared from use entirely sometime in the 1970s, then re-emerged in the mid-aughts only to be bandied about so much it's lost all meaning.
Language continues to recycle itself. This is nothing new! Hipsters were dead before the 'hipsters' were born.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @11:19AM
PS: Hipster is the root of hippie
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 30 2015, @11:40AM
Fuck them. Fuck them right in the goat ass. There are many reasons these people should be punched in the face on sight, not the least of which is they profane the awesome manliness of beards.
Look, kiddies, there are exactly two approved types of beards: the Grizzly Adams and the ZZ Top. If you're not either clean shaven or in possession of/en route to one of the two, you need to be held down and shaved with a dull razor.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by FatPhil on Friday October 30 2015, @12:27PM
Either way, I disagree that hipsters need punching in the face because of their facial hair. They need punching in the face because of absolutely everything. I know several pro-lifers/god-squadders, I know several racists and homophobes, I know many republicans/conservatives (there is plenty of overlap, clearly), I'm not afraid of having people I vehemently disagree with in my company. But by heck I've managed to keep my social circle almost entirely free of hipsters. I know just one on first name terms, but he lives in a different country in a town I never visit, so I could almost pretend that I don't have any hipster friends.
(And please try to minimise Adam Sandler references, his existence is almost as offensive as hipsters'.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @12:41PM
You may like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmFnarFSj_U/ [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday October 30 2015, @02:28PM
Aw man, that's harsh. I love a good handlebar mustache on my bartender. It's like being in an 1800's themepark!
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Friday October 30 2015, @02:15PM
In Wales, in the UK, there is a strong movement for using the Welsh language. It almost died out, it being assumed by the mid-20th Century that it would vanish as older people died off. But then it was revived, principally by the Welsh nationalist movement, and we now have bi-lingual signs here in Wales. There are a few people who speak Welsh only.
Welsh is a mix of Celtic, pigeon Latin, and English re-spelled for Welsh pronunciation. The Celtic words tend to be about grass, mountains, rivers and horse shit. The Latin words are about cultured stuff like books and paper. The "English" words are about things not introduced to Wales until "modern" times, like toilets ("toiled") and hospitals ("ysbyty"). You can tell I'm not Welsh.
At a Welsh power station I have worked at, the blue-collar guys all speak Welsh to each other, while most of the the management and professional staff know only English. It accentuates a divide which you might not think a good thing.
(Score: 1) by donkeyhotay on Friday October 30 2015, @03:01PM
Not a very well-written article, and I'm not sure the graphs confirm the author's thesis -- in a couple of cases the usage looks flat, rather than trending upwards. However, the maiden in the accompanying photograph has wondrous limbs.