lonely vs. lonesome?

[Thomas Paikeday]

I find the human connection of lonely/lonesome quite interesting.
Dennis's contrastive sentence "A lonesome whistle is one which evokes
lonely feelings in the listeners" is particularly striking. I'd like to
study the question further. Here are some common expressions for
analysis:

LONELY (in senses of "being alone and gloomy; [attrib.] alone and
isolated")
a lonely bachelor, widow; feeling depressed and lonely; sad and lonely;
lonely and homesick; the lonely hearts column; the lonely desert night;
a cold and lonely world; a lonely lingering death; a lonely business,
childhood, journey, life, look, house, place, road, trail, traveller,
tree, village, voice; It's lonely at the top.

LONESOME (in senses of "feeling lonely; causing one to feel lonely;
solitary")
a lonesome bachelor, existence, highway, orphan, road.

Incidentally, my database has six times more "lonely" citations than
"lonesome" ones.

TOM PAIKEDAY
lexicographer
www3.sympatico.ca/t.paikeday/index.htm


"Dennis R. Preston" wrote:
>
> I have a tendency to use lonely with +human ("I'm just lonely boy")
> and lonesome with -human ("I heard that lonesome whistle blow") to
> cite from songs, as folk seem to like to do these days.
>
> The restriction on "lonely" with -human is strongest; for me, a
> "lonely whistle" is one longing for company (unlikely); a "lonesome
> whistle" is one which evokes lonely feelings in its listeners (like a
> "lonesome sight" does in its viewers, etc...).
>
> dInIs
>
> >On 25 Aug 2002, at 21:48, Indigo Som wrote:
> >  Is "lonesome" regularly used outside of country or
> >>  blues songs?
> >>
> >>  Thanks,
> >>  Indigo
> >
> >I tend to think of this as a countryish variant, too.  I associate it
> >with the writings of Mark Twain. (For example, the opening
> >sentence of _A Connecticut Yankee_ is: "It was a soft, reposeful
> >summer landscape, as lovely as a dream, and as lonesome as
> >Sunday.")  I guess this has no bearing on contemporary use of the
> >word, but my search of a literature database indicates that it
> >showed up in authors who dealt in more "sivilized" subjects as well
> >-- Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, James, Wharton, Stevenson,
> >Norris, and Gibbon.  Twain had more hits than any individual author
> >in the database, though.
> >
> >Joanne Despres
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> Professor of Linguistics
> Department of Linguistics and Languages
> 740 Wells Hall A
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
> Office - (517) 353-0740
> Fax - (517) 432-2736