fraught

[Wilson Gray]

It's been around among the chattering classes for several years, but,
heretofore, apparently, not among the academic classes.

IME it's older than "Oh, snap!" Though simple 'fraught" in place of
the, e.g. cliched, "fraught with danger," is somewhat less hip, of
course.

-Wilson

On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 10:53 AM, Jonathan
Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: fraught
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Maybe, Charlie, but I think it amounts to the same thing.
>
> Anyway, they're using it a lot: I've seen it in the _New Yorker_ and heard
> it on CNN.
> New to me.
>
> JL
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 10:04 AM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: fraught
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Maybe rather than being elliptical for the idiomatic phrase, the use of
>> "fraught" just recovers the older sense of 'freighted' ('burdened' or
>> 'carrying baggage')?
>>
>> --Charlie
>> _____________________________________________________________
>>
>> ---- Original message ----
>> >Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:59:13 -0400
>> >From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> >Subject: fraught
>> >
>> >I can't find it in the Archives. Â Short for "fraught with difficulties or
>> complications." Here's an ex. from a learned colleague:
>> >
>> >2009 Brian Boyd _On the Origin of Stories_ (Cambridge: Belknap) 56: If
>> cooperation is is fairly easy to establish, yet already fraught, among close
>> kin, how can it extend even among non-kin?
>> >
>> >No earlier instance of "fraught" in the book. Â My impression is that it's
>> becoming a bit faddish in the media.
>> >
>> >JL
>>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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