"at the helm" = playing the most important role?/ "allegorical" = allusive; suggestive; referential

[Jonathan Lighter]

I don't disagree.  The overall sense of the sentense is clear. My point
though, as so often it is, was to call attention to what appear to be
incipient shifts in lexical meaning.

We have no idea what the writer intended at the level of single-item
semantics. He might look back at the sentence today and say, "I can't
believe I wrote that!"  (The sloppy writing theory.)  Or he might say, "I
don't get it. What's the problem?"  (The opposite extreme: full-fledged
semantic shifts that seem prfectly normal to him.)

What we do know is that the diction here is anomalous. I don't think,
personally, that the writer is clueless about the established meaning of
 "allegory" or that "at the helm" customarily means "exercising
overall control."  However, his ability  - at the same time - to use these
items in such unusual ways suggests the possibility that their meanings are
shifting in the language at large.  Decades from now, these very shifts may
appear to be standard and the older senses of "allegory" and "at the helm"
regarded as amusingly quaint. We all know that meanings change over time,
sometimes radically.  and noting such exx. may enable us to look back at
some point and see roughly when the changes began to be felt.

The evidence already suggests that "allegory" can mean - for some highly
educated speakers - little more than "metaphor" or "symbol."  The quoted
sentence underscores this development by taking it even further, into the
realm of "allusive."

_The Red Badge of Courage_ could hardly be interpreted by anyone as
an allegory of the Korean War. It might _suggest_ the Korean War in a very
limited way; it might be thought to "allude to" the korean War in some
fuzzily unfocused way. But its focus is on a single character whose actions
would be pretty hard to interpret as  *standing for* geopolitics in Korea.
About the only resemblance I can see is that forces of "North" and "South"
were involved in both. Hardly an allegory, unless you already
use "allegory" in the new way.

How, moreover, can the forces (or even the high command) of one nation ever
be "at the helm" in a war?  Wouldn't that mean that they were "in overall
control," i.e., stage-managing all events from behind the scenes?  That's
essenially what would be required for the customary meaning of "at the helm"
to be operative here.

If the future reveals ever more exx. of "allegory" used in this way - and my
guess is that it will - the 2050 revision of the OED may like to have this
ex.  I'm not at all certain that we'll see many more "at the helms" used as
above, but if we do this passage will be doubly interesting.

BTW, I only post such exx. when they jump out at me.  I haven't yet reached
the point where I obsess over every word I read trying to find something
fishy about it.

JL
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 10:25 PM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "at the helm" = playing the most important role?/
>              "allegorical" =              allusive; suggestive; referential
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I agree that it's not the best sentence ever written, but I think I
> understand (without having read the wider context) what he means.
>
> It is "potentially allegorical" in that the Civil War depicted in the film
> could be seen as an allegory for the civil war in Korea.
>
> And American generals were indeed "at the helm" of one side in the war.
> "Troops" is the bad choice here, not "at the helm." Had it read "American
> generals at the helm" or "the American military at the helm" I don't think
> anyone would have a problem with it.
>
> I don't buy his argument, but not because of his choice of phrase.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of
> Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 6:21 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "at the helm" = playing the most important role?/ "allegorical" =
> allusive; suggestive; referential
>
>  Maybe this is of semantic interest, maybe it's just sloppy writing. Or
> maybe
> it's of interest since there are two striking semantic anomalies in one
> proof-read, published, academic sentence:
>
> 2003 Guerric DeBona, O.S.B., in Robert Eberwein, ed. _The War Film_ (New
> Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers U.P., 2005) 118: Schary had not counted on the
> problem of releasing a potentially allegorical period piece [_The Red Badge
> of Courage_] about the Northern and Southern conflict in America when a
> civil war was raging in Korea with American troops at the helm.
>
> Needless to say, there would be nothing "allegorical" about _The Red Badge
> of Courage_, even in the geopolitical conditions of 1951. (I've seen the
> movie.)
>
> American troops "at the helm" of the "civil war raging in Korea"?  Nope.
>
> Br. DeBona is a member of the Benedictine Order, but he also writes about
> movies, which could be the determining factor here. Reading too much film
> criticism does things to people.
>
> JL
>
> "There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
> Platypus"
>
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