#word use

[bethanydelleman]

What do you think Austen encompasses when she refers to “taste” and “manners”? I’m trying to think past the obvious but I don’t really know what these concepts meant in the early 19th century, but they were clearly important descriptives.

Thanks for your thoughts!

This is a big question, as Jane Austen's works are often described as a "comedy of manners" and the concept of taste comes up a lot! There are certainly nuances in the way she uses these words. I'm going to do taste in this response and manners in another post because this got long.

Taste comes in two forms, natural and educated. Lady Catherine in Pride & Prejudice snobbishly describes herself as having the former:

There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.

While this is most likely a jab at people who claim natural taste while being uneducated, and a display of Lady Catherine's misplaced pride. In Sense & Sensibility, Elinor defends Edward by claiming he has natural taste:

“What a pity it is, Elinor,” said Marianne, “that Edward should have no taste for drawing.”

“No taste for drawing!” replied Elinor, “why should you think so? He does not draw himself, indeed, but he has great pleasure in seeing the performances of other people, and I assure you he is by no means deficient in natural taste, though he has not had opportunities of improving it. Had he ever been in the way of learning, I think he would have drawn very well. He distrusts his own judgment in such matters so much, that he is always unwilling to give his opinion on any picture; but he has an innate propriety and simplicity of taste, which in general direct him perfectly right.”

Now "taste" doesn't seem to only be "the ability to discern what is of good quality or of a high aesthetic standard." it also speaks to execution, as we see here in Northanger Abbey:

Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another.

This sentence would suggest the definition of taste to be something like "skill". Etymoline gives this definition:

Also from c. 1300 in English as "to touch, to handle." From early 14c. as "have experience or knowledge of" (of bliss, bitterness, etc.). The meaning "exercise the sense of taste" is recorded from late 14c.... The meaning "aesthetic judgment, artistic sensibility, faculty of discerning and appreciating what is excellent" is attested by mid-15c... The sense of "fact or condition of liking or preferring something, inclination" is from late 14c. 

Henry Tilney talks about taste as something like skill as well:

“I should no more lay it down as a general rule that women write better letters than men, than that they sing better duets, or draw better landscapes. In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes.”

Austen also makes a bit of a pun about taste, would not disgust a young person of taste, when talking about the merits of novels.

We see taste associated with education again here:

They were viewing the country with the eyes of persons accustomed to drawing, and decided on its capability of being formed into pictures, with all the eagerness of real taste. Here Catherine was quite lost. She knew nothing of drawing—nothing of taste... her attention was so earnest that he became perfectly satisfied of her having a great deal of natural taste.

Similar to Pride & Prejudice: Lady Catherine continued her remarks on Elizabeth’s performance, mixing with them many instructions on execution and taste.

And then of course, we have Elizabeth's admiration of Darcy's taste when she sees Pemberley:

Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste... The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine,—with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings.

And again, the association with education:

She listened most attentively to all that passed between them, and gloried in every expression, every sentence of her uncle, which marked his intelligence, his taste, or his good manners.

Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure, though not playing half so well; and Mary, at the end of a long concerto, was glad to purchase praise and gratitude by Scotch and Irish airs, at the request of her younger sisters, who with some of the Lucases, and two or three officers, joined eagerly in dancing at one end of the room.

So, to sum up this massive litany of quotes, natural taste seems to be an inclination in the right direction, which can be honed with proper education. Real taste comes from a place of education. There seems to be a suggestion that one type of taste can be correct, it is not just a matter of opinion. Jane Austen argues that novels should be a part of that "correct" taste. I imagine that taste changed with movements, such as Romanticism and the idea of the picturesque.

[explorationsoftheid]

“Why can’t you just talk normally?”

I get this fairly often. From people that don’t know me well. They find my use of words to be odd. But seriously this is how I talk. I use words like pursuant, and moot in conversation. English is one of my Special Interests. I know it well, and I use it well. In addition I learned a lot of words when I was a kid. I had a stutter, and if I couldn’t say one word, I learned to substitute a synonym. That’s how I still talk. If I feel a word is going to be an issue, I shift to a different one.

This isn’t trying to sound in a particular way. I’m not trying to put on airs. This is how I talk.

Deal with it.

[areadersquotelibrary]

"There ought to be some way of dry-cleaning and disinfecting words."

- Aldous Huxley, 'Eyeless in Gaza'

[rosewind2007]

Live

Love

Laugh

in The Murderbot Diaries

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

There are 12 mentions, a dozen (like a dozen red roses 🌹), of the word LOVE in the Murderbot Diaries

Or, to be more accurate:

6 x love

3 x loved

1 x beloved

1 x lovefest

1 x lovely

As one of the comments (from KosKat—thank you KosKat!) points out:

“You know what I find fascinating about these dozen mentions of love? They all have negative connotations. Possible exceptions:

I love you, armor, and I'm never leaving you again. But even here, Murderbot's using that as a shield.

ART loved its crew, like, a lot. But there's a sense that Murderbot's doesn't "get it"/is bewildered by that love, and then of course there's the fact that it finds their deaths really sad and unfair.

"No, the font was lovely." Perhaps not a negative connotation, but neither is the word being used in earnest.

And the absolute minefield:

Then Amena said, "Do you love my second mother?" Huge loaded question there!

The rest are all sarcastic and/or disgusted uses of the word "love". Really highlights how Murderbot views the concept, and I empathize. But also... it makes me a little sad.”

Their are thirteen (13) laughs in The Murderbot Diaries

No laughs in All Systems Red (two slaughters)

No laughs in Artificial Condition

Two (2) laughs in Rogue Protocol

She laughed and her dark eyes crinkled. “We’re finally going, Miki!”

Don Abene, being lovely with Miki

“I’m excited!” Miki echoed. “We will do a good assessment, and then we can have a new assignment.”

Ejiro laughed. “I hope it’s that easy.”

More Miki associated gaiety

Three (3) laughs in Exit Strategy (and a slaughter)

Ratthi walking when he was tired after a long day, absorbed in a conversation as he walked with Arada and Overse, laughing and pretending to defend himself as Pin-Lee threw a cushion at him, running as we frantically loaded a hopper to escape.

Ratthi possibly being a little flirty with Pin-Lee

I stepped out of the pod into dark purple clouds, lightning, simulated rain, and the startled yelps and laughter of the waiting passengers.

Yelps and laughter—during Murderbot’s dramatic manipulation of the artificial thunderstorm

She started to laugh, then her face did something complicated and she hugged me.

Mensah being lovely with Murderbot

No laughs in Fugitive Telemetry

Network Effect contains eight (8) laughs (but given its greater length the density is comparable to the novellas) and two (2) slaughters.

He led her into the darkened house, and she stumbled on a low table. She giggled and he laughed. Sounding way more intoxicated than he actually was, he said, "Wait, I got it," and tapped the house's feed to turn on the lights.

It’s the horrible Marne, pretending to be intoxicated with Amena

It also sounded vaguely like the break-up part of the romance scenes on the shows I watched, most of which I usually skimmed over. I said, "It's not me, it's you."

She huffed a laugh.

Mensah being lovely with Murderbot

"Poor thing was dead," Unidentified Two= Target Two responded, and laughed. Poor thing. I think a capillary just burst inside one of my organic parts.

Target Two is going to regret that

Target Two's gray face went surprised, then furious. It was kind of funny. This was a point where if I was a human (ick) I might have laughed. I decided to go with my first inclination and kill the shit out of some ass-faced hostiles instead. I told the Targets,

"Angry, then afraid, then dead. Is that the right order?"

What did I say? Murderbot associating laughter with humans, and here with a sort of cruel laughter

Eletra shoved her hair back and looked exhausted. "They did something that knocked us unconscious in the shuttle. One moment we were there, the next we were lying on the deck in this ship, and those gray people were laughing at us. I don't know what happened to the others."

More cruel laughter from the Targets (gray people)

If I sound calm, I was actually not calm. I thought I'd had control of the situation (sort of control, okay? don't laugh) and then it had unraveled rapidly.

Please don’t laugh at Murderbot, it’s really not a good idea (Ras has just shot it at this point so it’s not feeling its best anyway)

ART would have laughed at an attack like that. (Actually, ART would have laughed at the part where it sent back a code bundle that would have eaten my face.)

Murderbot thinking of ART laughing—which is nice…sort of? Code bundles which eat your face probably aren’t really nice. Also, at this point Murderbot still thinks ART is dead (sob)

Some of these laughs are actually gentle and warm, those with Miki for example. Mensah laughs warmly with Murderbot…

But many of the laughs are dark—Marne’s laughter is deceptive. The Targets’ laughter is cruel…and when Murderbot imagines ART laughing it’s not a kind laugh

[alexadelphia-official]

One the one hand I get it I really do, words mean different things in different contexts

On the other hand, my personal pet peeve is when people use "deserve" instead of "need" (and "need" instead of "want").

"She deserves to know the truth."

My man whether you are morally obligated to tell her the truth has nothing to do with deserving it! She just needs to know the truth.

"You deserve to be loved"

That's not how it works, you cannot deserve love, as if being a "good enough person" makes you entitled to the affection of others. However, because you are human, you need to be loved.

[The need instead of want has been explained by other people better than I could, but the bottom line is don't act entitled to things that you don't actually need/ are not your "right". If I hear people saying they """"""need"""""" things like sex or even worse, it's their right (!!!!!!) I'm going to go a little feral.]

[crowandmoonwriting]

Landscape Words for Description

Archipelago: a group of islands

Atoll: ring-shaped coral reef enclosing a lagoon

Basin: depression in earth’s surface with a lake or pond at the bottom

Bay: small sea

Boca: river mouth

Bog: wet spongy ground, swamp

Brook: small stream of fresh water

Canal: man made navigable water way

Canyon: deep, narrow valet with steep sides, carved by a river

Cascade: small waterfall

Chasm: deep cleft in earth, gorge

Cove: sheltered recess on the coast line lines

Crater: bowl shaped depression at the mouth of a volcano

Creek: small, slow moving stream

Delta: flat, alluvial plain at the mouth of the river

Eddy: circular movement of water in a river

Floe: large, flat mass of ice floating in a sea

Ford: shallow part of a stream through which one can walk across

Glacier: large mass of moving ice

Glade: open, grassy area within forest

Gorge: narrow, steep ravine with rocky walls

Grove: small wood

Headland: high point of land projecting into the sea, promontory

Heath: open wasteland with shrubs, moor

Hedge: row of shrubs forming a boundary

Iceberg: large mass of ice floating on sea

Isthmus: narrow strip of land with water on both sides and connecting two large bodies of lands

Knoll: small, rounded hill

Lagoon: shallow body of water cut off from the sea by sandbar

Marsh: wet, boggy land: swamp

Moor: open wasteland with shrubs, heath

Orchard: grove with fruit trees

Peninsula: large land area with sea on three sides

Prairie: large track of rolling grassland

Precipice: near vertical face of a hill

Quagmire: marsh, bog

Quicksand: bed of loose and wet sand that yields underfoot

Ravine: narrow, steep depression formed by running water

Rivulet: small stream

Savanna: grassy plain

Scrub: growth of low trees and shrubs

Shingle: coarse alluvial material along sea shore

Shoal: shallow place in river, sand bar

Shrub: short multi-stemmed plants

Strait: narrow water way connecting two large bodies of water

Summit: highest point of a mountain

Surf: waves breaking against the beach

Tableland: flat, elevated track of land

Thicket: dense growth of shrubs

Tide: rise and fall of sea level at a place due to the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun

Torrent: stream with a strong current

Tributary: stream leading to a larger river

Tundra: level, treeless plain in the arctic region

Valley: long depression between two hills

Vineyard: field of grapevines

Vista: height allowing view over a large expanse of land

Vortex: whirlpool

Whirlpool: water spinning rapidly in a circle with a downward sucking force

Wood: dense growth of trees

Source x

[afairymind]

Wednesday Word: Caustic

  This week’s Weekly Word is:

Part of Speech

Adjective and noun

Related Words

caustical (adjective)

caustically (adverb)

causticity (noun)

Pronunciation

UK /ˈkɔː.stɪk/ 

US /ˈkɑː.stɪk/

Meaning

ADJECTIVE

able to burn or corrode organic tissue by chemical action

sarcastic in a scathing and bitter way

in physics– formed by the intersection of reflected or refracted parallel rays from a curved…

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