Sunday, June 30, 2024

14.08.24: follow-up; food and drink [7]; bust your lip and become part of history!

This is a superb contemporary example of what Classicists have been doing for centuries (I don't mean busting their lips but, judging by some of the arguments on FB, it's possible):

You may not have heard of Nathan Hope, but he does have a claim to fame. Below is information from Wikipedia and I have put some key points in italics:

“The first known use of the word ‘selfie’ in any paper or electronic medium appeared in an Australian internet forum on 13 September 2002 … in a post by Nathan Hope. … Hope later dismissed the notion that he coined the term, describing it as "something that was just common slang at the time, used to describe a picture of yourself … By 2013, the word "selfie" had become commonplace enough to be monitored for inclusion in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary, …”

[1] The term was coined i.e. somebody invented the word. We have evidence in Latin of many words appearing during the Mediaeval and Renaissance periods, the latter in particular relating to research, where new words are coined or reworked from Classical Latin to convey, for example, types of flowers or fruit or species of animals.

[2] According to Hope, “selfie” was already in common use i.e. neither he nor anybody else would be able to indicate when it was first said. However, the reference to ‘paper or electronic medium’ is the key point. This is attestation i.e. the documented existence of a word which, nowadays, would include its use on TV or a recording.

In terms of Latin, attestation is very important since it not only helps us to decide whether a disputed grammatical construction is accurate or whether a word is used with a particular meaning, but also indicates whether a word actually exists and the historical period when it is first recorded. Who said it first cannot be determined, but where it first appeared can be, and it is listed as a legitimate word.

[3] The inclusion of the word in the OED is a result of common parlance i.e. a word or phrase that, initially, is not considered an official part of the language but, over time and with increased usage, is finally accepted. That, however, is not a consideration in Latin. Pliny the Elder is the only known Roman writer to use the word ūndēcentum for ‘99’; we can assume others used it i.e. it was common parlance, but, even if it only appears once, that is sufficient for it to be valid.

If, in 2000 years’ time, there’s an argument on FB about whether the word “selfie” existed in the, by then, Ancient English language, they’ll point triumphantly to Nathan Hope and his busted lip.



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