Variations on the word "worry"

[luzula]

1) I had meant to go to my parents today after a week of quarantining as best one can in an apartment with other people, but I feel a very slight tickle in my throat, which could be my imagination, but it makes me worried. Better wait a day and see. /o\

2) Occasionally I realize I've been using a word that is not allowable in 1750 and have to go back and edit it out of all my Flight of the Heron fic. Today's word is "worry" in the sense of "feeling anxious or troubled". Sigh, that word was a transitive verb meaning "to annoy or vex someone" back then (from an earlier stronger meaning of "to slay, kill or injure by biting and shaking the throat"), and I have now replaced it with variations of concern/trouble/fret/fear, which are all fine. I make copious use of the Online Etymology Dictionary. I mean, it's not that I imagine myself to actually be writing as they did in 1750, nor is that necessarily my goal, but at least I can try to avoid anachronisms.

And indeed, there is not a single use of "worry" in canon! Yeah, Broster did her research. But hey, she was born in 1877, and the intransitive use of "worry" to mean "feeling anxious or troubled" is actually only attested from 1860, though the use "to cause mental distress or trouble" is attested from 1822.

Another error I've recently discovered is that Anglicans/Episcopalians do not pray for the souls of the dead! This is/was a Catholic thing to do. Ugh, I have a character do this at least at one point, I suppose I should fix it. I should thank Naomi Mitchison for this discovery.

Comments

[naraht]

Another error I've recently discovered is that Anglicans/Episcopalians do not pray for the souls of the dead! This is/was a Catholic thing to do.

I think it would depend on the Anglican but you might be right in this context?

Orthodox Christians do as well, in case that's ever relevant (probably not!).

[luzula]

Thanks, I did read up on it! It seems that All Souls' Day has made a come-back, but from what I read, it seems that they're careful not to imply that the dead have any benefit from prayers by the living. Anyway, in my story it was someone praying for someone who had recently died, which seems right out.

I doubt any Orthodox Christians are going to turn up in my story, but thanks anyway! : )

[garonne]

I had no idea that usage of the word worry was so recent!

You just reminded me of the existence of this site http://wordsworth.us which I've bookmarked but not used yet (but it looks great). It's a sort of anachronism spell checker, though unfortunately it starts in 1800.

[luzula]

Oh, that seems like a potentially useful site...but something seems off about it? I asked it to compare a section of my recent Flemington fic to texts from 1800's (the decade, that is), and it flagged these as anachronisms: despite, silky, slim, lack, shift, captor, confront, murmur, thump, territory, seduce, shirtsleeves (okay, maybe I should have a hyphen in that one).

All those are definitely fine, because I double-checked! So I don't know if I trust that site.

Although I did find "improvise", which is an anachronism for the mid-1700's, though it does appear in the 1800's! Also, "stuffy" existed but did not mean "poorly ventilated" then.

Clearly one can spend a lot of time on this! I mean, I care and it's also a lot of fun, but of course I can't check every single word or I would never get any actual writing done. : )

[luzula]

The thing is, it links to the Google ngrams, but I can't make sense of how it picks out words as anachronisms, given that the ngram for "shift" even has a bit of a spike in the 1800's.

[garonne]

The site's creator has open-sourced all the codes and datasets here, which is pretty cool. Looks like they're taking all words and 2-grams (two words occurring sequentially) in the user's text and checking which of them don't appear in a selection of historical texts (the ones listed here ) They only have a limited number of texts for each decade, I guess because they must have had to clean the text of each novel by hand, which must have taken some time.

So there's going to be false negatives like the examples you saw (words that get flagged only because they're not in the website's corpus, even though they were actually in use in that decade) and false negatives (words that should have been flagged as anachronisms, but don't get flagged because they were in use in that decade with a different meaning, like your "worry" example). You could easily reduce the first problem just by including more texts in the corpus, but I think the second problem is basically impossible to solve with our current levels of natural language processing technology.

It looks like they're not using the Google Ngram data at all (besides linking to their website) probably because the Google dataset is not great quality for this kind of thing. A word attested in the dataset in 1890, for instance, might be a reprint of something originally published in 1810, which itself might be a story set in some previous century. Whereas I see this Wordsworth person has made an effort to only use novels which are both originally published in the given decade and also set in the given decade.

I guess maybe the Google Ngram dataset is still pretty useful for seeing when words first appear? Even if not so useful for seeing their variation or decline over time...

Can you tell I've spent a lot of time thinking about this? *g*

[luzula]

Interesting! Given how many false positives I got in my example, it seems the dataset does need to be larger if it is to be useful. And good points about the usefulness and limitations of the ngram.

Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it. : )

[ride_4ever]

TYK for the mention of this "anachronism checker"! Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Prose! *g*

[isis]

I laughed at your repurposed quote!

(and Luz, that's really impressive of you to check these things!)

[luzula]

Thanks! But I mean, I also do it for fun. : )

[ride_4ever]

I just can't stop quoting or paraphrasing Fraser. (Or would that be paraFRASing? *g*)

[feroxargentea]

May your very slight lurgy turn out to be nothing *crosses fingers*

I had no idea about "worry". Your 1750s English is better than mine, of course :)

Maybe Anglicans don't *officially* pray for the souls of the dead as such, but unofficially you kind of do every time you say "God rest them", "God keep them" etc? As long as you're not implying that that would cause any intervention in a literal Catholic-style way, because God forbid anyone do anything Catholic (!) But there's definitely a difference between the rules and what people do. (Speaking as an atheist dragged through a semi-Anglican upbringing.)

[luzula]

Thanks! I hope so too.

I had no idea about "worry". Your 1750s English is better than mine, of course :)
I'm learning so much! Little of which will be useful outside of fandom, of course, but at least I'm having fun.

Hee, I think being concerned about seeming too Catholic was more relevant in the 18th century. That's useful about actual practice, though--I guess people's need to remember and care about their dead can trump what doctrine says.

[solo]

Sigh, that word was a transitive verb meaning "to annoy or vex someone" back then

Haha yes, that's why certain rural populations (Welsh, Aberdonian) are still unkindly and no doubt unfairly referred to as 'sheep-worriers'.

[luzula]

Er, do they intend that in a sexual way or am I just reading into it?

[solo]

No, you are reading it right. Sheep-shaggers is the modern term. /o\

[regshoe]

I hope you feel better soon!

Your commitment to historically accurate vocabulary is admirable :D Yeah, there have been quite a few words/phrases that I wouldn't necessarily have thought of as particularly new, but once I learn that they are I think, oh yeah, now that you mention it I don't think I have seen that one very often in older books... And that etymology website looks very useful, thanks for linking!

As far as I understand it, I agree that the specifically Catholic thing is believing that prayers will actually affect what happens to the souls of the dead—you can probably have Anglican characters do some sort of religious remembrance, I think.

[luzula]

Yeah, there have been quite a few words/phrases that I wouldn't necessarily have thought of as particularly new

What are your favorite examples? And no doubt I am ruining myself for not-so-well-researched historical fiction...

I like that site because it tracks changes over time in the meaning of words, as well as how old words are. No doubt the OED has more detail, but I don't have access to it!

The moment I'm thinking of is when Ewen prays after the battle of the Corryarrick in my fic, but I guess I'll just make his prayers less specific or something...although I did like it that he prayed for the men that he killed as well.

[regshoe]

Ooh, examples—I remember 'contact' as a verb meaning 'communicate with/send a message to' was one (etymonline has that going back to 1927 in America!). 'Move on' (in the emotional sense) was another that came up in one of my fics—I clearly wasn't thinking of it as recent when I used it, but when my beta reader pointed it out I thought, oh yeah, of course that's modern.

Etymological histories are so fascinating—I love seeing how meanings shift over time, and the sorts of logical progressions that can end up making a word mean something completely different from what it used to.

I did like it that he prayed for the men that he killed as well.

Yes, that was a lovely detail! A suggestion—perhaps he could pray for their families, who are still alive and will grieve them, and who might want prayers for their welfare?

[luzula]

One of my favorite examples is "anyway" (in the sense "regardless"), because it's so common, but I weaned myself from that one early. That's from the 1850's, before that it just meant "in any way".

A suggestion—perhaps he could pray for their families, who are still alive and will grieve them, and who might want prayers for their welfare?

Oh, that's perfect! Thanks. : )

[regshoe]

That's a good one! I'm not sure that I was actually aware of it, but I think I prefer 'in any case' in historically-set writing anyway.

Oh, that's perfect! Thanks. : )

Oh good :D

[starshipfox]

I spend so much time playing the fun game of, "Is this just my imagination or am I going to infect my loved ones?" I hope the throat tickle passes!

I have heard Anglicans say that Catholics "worship the dead" and create "death cults" because of the ways in which they pray (particularly to saints), but I never thought about it in-depth before: I suppose it was a very important difference in the 18th century, the cultural significance of which has faded over time.

[luzula]

Yeah, that's a fun game. /o\ My mom was all "just come anyway!", but she's 70, and I don't want to infect her...

The Protestantism/Catholicism divide was still very politically sensitive in 18th century Britain. The specific thing I'd missed was not about praying to saints, but about praying to God to take care of the soul of some specific person who'd recently died, but apparently Anglican/Episcopalian doctrine says you shouldn't do that because God decides what happens to their soul and you can't influence it. Or something like that! *does not fully understand the intricacies of this*

[starshipfox]

Yes, in the 19th century too, I believe: it's interesting to see the intense suspicion of Catholics in Victorian fiction. I didn't realise that the doctrine around prayer for the dead was so strong. I think the suspicion of Catholics as "death worshippers" may link to both the saints *and* the prayers for the dead. I'm not quite sure what the Anglican position on transubstantiation is, but I know some kinds of Protestants are made very uncomfortable by that too. As an Irish person who was brought up atheist but went to both Catholic and Protestant schools, I've picked up *a lot* of stuff, but it's not very sensibly organised in my brain.

[china_shop]

but I feel a very slight tickle in my throat, which could be my imagination, but it makes me worried.

This is my entire life now. I had a mildly sore throat for months during lockdown, so I know it's just part of my normal state, but of course, I still have to be paranoid when I'm seeing people or doing things in case this time it's a different sore throat. And now I have a slightly runny nose (probably because my partner had a cold a couple of weeks ago), so I postponed my dentist appointment, and... I'm just used to having low-level symptoms! It's hard when I have to take them seriously. ;-p

IOW, much sympathy, and I hope the tickle goes away stat so you can see your parents! *hugs*

[luzula]

Thanks! I'd really been looking forward to seeing them and eating good food together and having a change of scene...ah well.

*hugs back*

Wow, actual hugs, I miss them so.