public spiritedness

[Jonathan Lighter]

I think the change (if there really has been one, which I think arguable)
has most to do with the connotations of "spiritedness."

"Spirit" today usually means energy and enthusiasm (team spirit) more than
it does intelligent consideration.

JL




On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 12:25 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: public spiritedness
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> What might have changed is the parsing of the entire phrase. What he says
> i=
> t
> used to be is "having the spirit of/for the public [good]". Now it is
> "bein=
> g
> spirited in public" because it resembles "public drunkenness". A simple
> hyphen would fix this.
>
> VS-)
>
>
> On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 11:41 AM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > In a NYTimes Op-Ed piece dated May 5, 2011, David Brooks writes the
> > following:
> >
> > "The first citizens of this country erected institutions to protect
> > themselves from their own shortcomings. We=92re familiar with some of
> > them: the system of checks and balances, the Senate, etc. More
> > important, they believed, was public spiritedness =97 a system of habits
> > and attitudes that would check egotism and self-indulgence.
> >
> > As Kristol points out in the essay, the meaning of the phrase =93public
> > spiritedness=94 has flipped since the 18th century. Now we think a
> > public-spirited person is somebody with passionate opinions about
> > public matters, one who signs petitions and becomes an activist for a
> > cause."
> >
> > Is he correct about the change in meaning of =93public spiritedness=94
>  > over time? Any idea when and why it changed?
> >
> > Thanks
> > DanG
>
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