What does "laconic" mean?

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED derives "willy-nilly" from the phrase "Will I, nill I" = "be I willing, be I unwilling," with both "he" and "ye" substitutable for "I."  There is no direct etymological connection with "nolens volens."

Defs. are

" A. adv. Whether it be with or against the will of the person or persons concerned; whether one likes it or not; willingly or unwillingly, nolens volens. {1608-1898}

B. adj.
    1. That is such, or that takes place, whether one will or no. {1877-1882}   2. erron. Undecided, shilly-shally. {1883-1898} "

JL

Amorelli <mariam11 at VIRGILIO.IT> wrote:

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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Amorelli
Subject: Re: What does "laconic" mean?
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Not having the OED to hand, may I ask what meanings do appear? Doesn't
"willy-nilly" have its root in "volens nolens"?
M.I.Amorelli
EAP,Faculties of Economics & Law
Sassari
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Lighter"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 9:01 PM
Subject: Re: What does "laconic" mean?


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: What does "laconic" mean?
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>
> Never ask those twentysomethings ! They always tell you what you most
> fear !
>
> This reminds me of "willy-nilly." When I encounter it, it almost always
> seems to mean "recklessly." This has been true all my life. But that
> meaning does not appear in OED, whose citations end in 1898.
>
> JL
>
> Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jesse Sheidlower
> Subject: What does "laconic" mean?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well, _I_ know what it means, and you probably do too. It's
> the rest of the world I'm wondering about.
>
> I was recently reading an online post about an audiobook, and
> read the comment, "Narrator a bit too laconic for my taste,
> but oh well."
>
> I thought, "How can it be the narrator's fault?", then
> realized that there's probably a semantic shift here, and did
> the usual exercise of asking a dozen or so highly educated
> twentysomethings what they thought the word meant, and
> discovered that they _all_ think _laconic_ means something
> like 'emotionless; affectless; dispassionate'.
>
> While I can see how this interpretation arose, I've never
> encountered it before; it's not in a medium-size pile of
> dictionaries and usage books I've checked, and we don't
> have any examples in our files. A quick look through some
> online sources suggests that the usual 'using few words'
> meaning is the one people use in print.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED
>
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