ept

[Paul Frank]

Not that I'd ever heard this before, but "socially ept" gets 21 Google
Books hits:

<http://books.google.com/books?q=%2B%22socially+ept%22&btnG=Search+Books>

And 3,730 Google hits:

<http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=%22socially+ept%22&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=632e1c8883aa332a>

"Socially apt" gets a lot more Google Books and plain vanilla Google hits.

Paul

Paul Frank
Translator
German, French, Italian, Chinese => English
Huémoz - Aigle - Neuchâtel, Switzerland
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
paul.frank at bfs.admin.ch




On 21 March 2010 13:06, Damien Hall <djh514 at york.ac.uk> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Damien Hall <djh514 at YORK.AC.UK>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â ept
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Just heard the author Val McDermid, on the BBC ethical-debate show 'The Big
> Questions' (21 March 2010), say something like the following:
>
> '[my children are] well-adjusted and socially ept'
>
> OED only lists _ept_ as 'a deliberate antonym of "inept": adroit,
> appropriate, effective; hence _eptitude_, _eptly_ adv.', and the quotations
> back that up, all seeming to use it ironically. The word isn't in the
> online version of MW. From her tone, McDermid wasn't being ironic - there
> was no change of pitch or pause to call attention to the word - and no-one
> picked it up, though, granted, on that show you wouldn't expect them to
> (they were debating IVF at the time).
>
> MDermid was brought up in the late '50s and early '60s in Kirkcaldy, Fife,
> Scotland; I don't know whether that's relevant to the use of the form, but
> others here might. Has anyone else heard it non-ironically?
>
> Damien
>
> --
> Damien Hall
>
> University of York
> Department of Language and Linguistic Science
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