By Anatoly Liberman
LOL and the wide world. Many thanks for the interesting comments, questions, and antedatings! Here comes the first spring set of gleanings. In a story, supposed to be funny, a boy who did not speak until he was six years old suddenly said at dinner: “Too much salt in the soup.” The family was overjoyed, and everybody asked: “Why have you not spoken before?” “So far, I had nothing to complain about,” was the answer. My mail is not too heavy, apparently because I seldom irritate our readers. But last month I applied the epithet short-lived to LOL, the king/queen of texting, and immediately three comments assured me that LOL is very much alive. I stand corrected and hasten to express my joy about the longevity of such a serviceable “word,” the more so as I have studied the history of laughter, and every expression of it, especially when it is unconcealed and loud, warms the cockles of my heart.
Generic they, a permanent irritant. This is an old hat. At one time, I launched a quixotic attack on sentences like when a student comes, I never make them wait and if a tenant is evicted, it does not mean they were a bad tenant. I contended that such sentences owe their existence to a misguided attempt to get rid of generic he and that the remedy was worse than the disease. Let it be repeated that I did not defend him or her and in general did not say anything outrageous, but my taunt brought forth numerous responses. Some people said that constructions of this type had been used since the days of King Alfred, Chaucer, Fielding, Thackeray, and many other illustrious authors who lived before the-mid seventies of the 20th century (the chronological span is a bit disconcerting). Almost nothing of any interest has been found, and certainly no monstrosities like those I quoted in my post turned up in any old book, for the antecedent has invariably been someone, no one, a person, and so forth. However, every now and then I receive letters purporting to prove me wrong. Here is an example dated 1909: “I don’t want to be a lady… they can’t ever ride straddle nor climb a tree, and they got to squinch their waists and toes.” (Frances Boyd Calhoun, Miss Minerva and William Green Hill; I have no page reference). This is a far cry from the expectant student and the hapless tenant mentioned above. There was no way to avoid they here except for repeating the noun (I don’t want to be a lady. Ladies…). I can say something like it about anything. “No, not a marker. They leave traces on my hands” or “Is this only a mouse? I am not afraid of them.” But they were not a bad tenant? Give me a break!
More about pronouns: “You are It.” I received a question about the origin of it in children’s games. Much to my disappointment, not a single citation has been found in my database (which now exists as A Bibliography of English Etymology). This means that in over 20,000 articles and notes I have read while compiling this bibliography, no one mentioned the history of it even in a perfunctory way. The editors of the OED seem to have run into a similar problem. In the original edition, it (in games) is not mentioned at all. In the First Supplement a few examples appeared, none of them antedating 1888. Later an 1842 example was dug up. The most amazing thing is how late those examples are. Should we assume that it in the games of tag and blindman’s buff did not exist before roughly the middle of the 19th century? This would be a startling assum