Fwd: Re: ept

[Damien Hall]

>From Wilson.

It didn't occur to me when first writing this that phonological change 
could actually mean that _inept_ was the negative form of _apt_ - which is 
plausible, isn't it? Is there any actual proof? In which case, the 
non-occurrence of _ept_ is explained.

The expression _apt to_ is surely also more widespread than the (social and 
geographical) locale where Wilson grew up. I've heard it in American and 
related (Bahamian) Englishes, and recently, and I'm not even from there!

Damien

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:20:55 -0400
Subject: Re: ept
To: djh514 at york.ac.uk

I once heard "socially ept" used seriously on the tube. Thinking, Surely,
that's a hapax, I didn't pay any further attention to it.

I also had the strangest feeling that "socially apt" would also be
ridculous, probably because I tend not to perceive _apt_ as the positive of
_inept__. After some pondering, I was ultimately able to recall that, when I
was a child in Texas, _apt to_ meant "likely to," "liable to," "going to
have to" in intra-familial threats:

"If y'all don't stop all that rippin' 'n' runnin', I'm _ap'_ to get me a
keen little switch an' give y'all a whippin.'"

(Even back in the '30's behind the Cotton Curtain, the pronunciations, "git"
and "whup(pin')," were regarded as "country" or déclassé by the black
bourgeoisie, in East Texas, at least. The /E/ in "get" tended toward /&/,
"gat," like the /E/ used by white people who pronounce "ten" almost as
"tan," so that a double-take is needed by those of us who use "tin" for
"ten.")

-Wilson

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 8:06 AM, Damien Hall <djh514 at york.ac.uk> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Damien Hall <djh514 at YORK.AC.UK>
> Subject:      ept
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Just heard the author Val McDermid, on the BBC ethical-debate show 'The Big
> Questions' (21 March 2010), say something like the following:
>
> '[my children are] well-adjusted and socially ept'
>
> OED only lists _ept_ as 'a deliberate antonym of "inept": adroit,
> appropriate, effective; hence _eptitude_, _eptly_ adv.', and the quotations
> back that up, all seeming to use it ironically. The word isn't in the
> online version of MW. From her tone, McDermid wasn't being ironic - there
> was no change of pitch or pause to call attention to the word - and no-one
> picked it up, though, granted, on that show you wouldn't expect them to
> (they were debating IVF at the time).
>
> MDermid was brought up in the late '50s and early '60s in Kirkcaldy, Fife,
> Scotland; I don't know whether that's relevant to the use of the form, but
> others here might. Has anyone else heard it non-ironically?
>
> Damien
>
> --
> Damien Hall
>
> University of York
> Department of Language and Linguistic Science
> Heslington
> YORK
> YO10 5DD
> UK
>
> Tel. (office) +44 (0)1904 432665
>     (mobile) +44 (0)771 853 5634
> Fax  +44 (0)1904 432673
>
> http://www.york.ac.uk/res/aiseb
>
> http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/lang/people/pages/hall.htm
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


Wilson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org