"bold" in Hiberno-Irish -- was: Re: "Bold Language"

[Tom Zurinskas]

>Terence Patrick Dolan, _A Dictionary of Hiberno-English_ (rev., 2004) has: "BOLD adj. naughty, mischievous"

So the Star Trek slogan "To boldly go where no man has gone before" means they were doing it to be "naughty and mischievious"?  Perhaps not.

I would say IMHO that definition is the exact opposite of the usual sense.  We've got the word "brazen" for that definition.  Let's boldly keep "bold" as "courageous and heroic" as its usual definition.

If we boldly told Mr. Dolan this, he might say we were following his definition - being n&m.  Boldness in the eyes of the beholder.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
see truespel.com phonetic spelling












----------------------------------------
> Date: Sat, 15 May 2010 02:35:32 +0100
> From: robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM
> Subject: "bold" in Hiberno-Irish -- was: Re: "Bold Language"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Robin Hamilton
> Subject: "bold" in Hiberno-Irish -- was: Re: "Bold Language"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From: "Arnold Zwicky"
>
>> On May 14, 2010, at 8:56 AM, Eoin C. Bairéad wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> the use of "bold" to mean naughty or badly-behaved is or was a
>>> standard
>>> example
>>
>> "was a standard example"? where?
>
> I'm not sure if this entirely addresses Arnold's question, but Terence
> Patrick Dolan, _A Dictionary of Hiberno-English_ (rev., 2004) has:
>
> "BOLD adj. naughty, mischievous. In SE 'bold' is primarily associated with
> courageousness, but in HE the primary meaning (possibly with influence from
> Ir _dana_, adj., bold, forward, audacious, daring) suggests mischievous
> behaviour."
>
> This does suggest that the sense of the term "bold" in Hiberno-Irish is
> distinct from that in Standard English, both UK and US.
>
> Whether this divergence in meaning is due to the semantic pressure of Irish
> Gaelic among the same community of speakers is perhaps another matter, and I
> would imagine less easy to document.
>
> I should say that my earlier statement that the citations of OED2 bold
> (adj.) "4. a. In bad sense: Audacious, presumptuous, too forward; the
> opposite of 'modest'," applied only to women was, looking again, not
> entirely accurate. It would be fairer to say, I think, that the citations
> suggest that it was originally applied to women, and even after 1600 was
> predominantly used, as a negative sense of "bold", in that context.
>
> However, the OED2 4.a sense of "bold" certainly isn't the *predominant sense
> in SE, nor is it even quite the same as the sense presented by Dolan as
> central in Hiberno-English.
>
> Robin
>
>>> of Hiberno-English, since the same Irish word, d=C3=A1na, could mean
>>> either audacious (the 'standard' English meaning) or mis-behaved.
>>
>> so Irish has this sense development. but so does English, from at
>> least the 13th century:
>>
>> [OED2] 4.a. In bad sense: Audacious, presumptuous, too forward; the
>> opposite of 'modest'.
>>
>> i assume that a similar sense development has taken place, internally,
>> in a great many languages; it's a natural step, which doesn't need the
>> influence of other languages.
>>
>>> Is 'bold' meaning 'naughty' now standard in American English?
>>
>> well, 'immodest' has been around in English (not specifically American
>> English) for a very long time. OED2 doesn't list a specialization to
>> 'sexually immodest' or 'indecorous in language', though maybe it should.
>>
>> arnold
>>
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>>
>
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