far out...

[George Thompson]

Geoffrey Nunberg writes:

> Fiske writes:  "Several editions ago, they added the term "far-out,"
> and they have yet to remove it--even though almost no one (certainly
> no one I know) uses the word today. "
>
> Well, but the equation of "no one" and "no one I know" is always a
> risky one, which is why it's always a good idea to check your facts,
>

To say nothing of the possibility that someone might read a novel, newspaper story or other document written in the 1970s and encounter the slang of the 1970s in it.  The more that this slang has become obsolete, the more there is need for a dictionary to define it.  But perhaps Mr. Fiske never reads anything wriiten between 1800 and 2000.

He really is a fool, isn't he?

GAT, who is not a lexicographer, and who, himself, never reads anything written before 1790 or after 1840.

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.

----- Original Message -----
From: Geoffrey Nunberg <nunberg at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Saturday, August 9, 2003 5:26 pm
Subject: far out...

> Fiske writes:  "Several editions ago, they added the term "far-out,"
> and they have yet to remove it--even though almost no one (certainly
> no one I know) uses the word today. "
>
> Well, but the equation of "no one" and "no one I know" is always a
> risky one, which is why it's always a good idea to check your facts,
> particularly nowadays, when they're just a couple of clicks away. If
> Fiske had troubled to do a Google search he would have found plenty
> of recent cites for "far out" in the MW sense of "marked by a
> considerable departure from the conventional or traditional,"
> including some from the Weekly Standard itself -- "'Yeah,' he
> replied. 'But after September 11, the far out's too real.'"
> (03/03/2003) And a Nexis search shows the phrase coming up almost 200
> times in the past month in major newspapers, a fair number of them
> with the sense in question; e.g.,
>
> Hieronymus Bosch. His work is so far-out. He depicted ice skates in
> The Garden of Earthly Delights - I didn't even know they had skates
> back then.
>
> What makes "Freaky Friday" a charmer isn't how far-out things get for
> this mother and daughter, but how sweet and distinctly un-freaky a
> kid, her mom and their love for each other can be.
>
>  Modigliani's painting ... was never really as far out as that of his
> peers, especially Picasso.
>
> Serious prescriptivists like Fowler and Follett did their homework
> before pronouncing on the language. It gives you pause to think what
> dictionaries would look like if they were compiled on Fiskean
> principles: "Well, in my set people say..."
>
> I mean, talk about decline...
>
> Geoff Nunberg
>