Definition of a word (Twit/Twat/Twirp)

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

Regarding the Twit/Twat/Twirp column ( here),

I know no authoritative work like OED or other dictionaries list pregnant (or ripe) goldfish as a definition of twit/twat/twirp, but once a large segment of the population “understands” that this word has this particular definition, doesn’t it become, at some point, a * de facto * definition of that word? Isn’t that one route that language evolves? - someone says, thinks, or hears that a given word has a particular new meaning, starts using it in that way, then other people start picking up that definition and using it, and so on, until it becomes slang, then progresses to an actual definition?

I would think that it does; so, if enough people say/acknowledge that twit = pregnant goldfish - at some point, doesn’t that make it a valid definition?

I mean, regardless of what dictionaries/encyclopedias/other reference works say, if two people communicate and use a word differently than before, but each person understands the context, and by extension the particular way they’re defining the word, then the word now has a new definition. Granted at this point, this definition is meaningful to only two people, but it is possible for this to spread as noted above.

So, by this train of thought, wouldn’t the answer to the question posed in the column now be “Yes, twit DOES mean a pregnant goldfish, at least to you and anyone who read the email you received, and now by the readers of this column”?

Curious about any thoughts anyone had on this one.

critter42

PS Moderators: I put this question here because it is a comment on the column, but is there a better forum this could be legitimately moved to to elicit a wider range of responses?

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An interesting assertion; but I think there needs to be a more rigorous principle behind accepting a new definition of a word than “This word has this meaning this because I believe it does” (much like Humpty Dumpty in Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland).

For instance, let’s take a word some people make a point of “bemoaning the loss” - gay. In other words, it would seem that the original meaning of “happy or carefree” has been ‘corrupted’ in some way or another to now indicate homosexuality - on the surface it looks like a new meaning has been added purely through social convention.

That, however, is not entirely the case. Gay does mean “light-hearted, exuberantly cheerful” according to the OED, but it also has the meaning “addicted to social pleasures and dissipation, euphemistically of loose or immoral life” - a definition that dates back to 1637, and probably much earlier than that. Thus, for at least four hundred years it’s been linguistically acceptable to call anything perceived as immoral “gay”. From there it’s a short logical leap.

On the other hand, there is no linguistic or logical basis to assign the meaning “pregnant goldfish” to twit, twat, or twerp. There’s no connection between the accepted definitions and the one that people are trying to assign to it.

3

This is the kind of fool thinking which validated the word “irregardless.” Naturally all meaning comes from usage, but should we throw up our arms in defeat and allow the language to be sculpted by misusage?

Sure, it starts with something little like calling a “pregnant” fish a “twit.” Next thing you know you’re taking a course in Ebonyx.

(coding fixed - Jill)

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Ah. I see HTML doesn’t quite track here anymore. Oops.

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Other than in that “Did You Know” trivia email, we didn’t even find anyone who actually uses the word “twit” for goldfish. I’m sure these fish aficionados have all kinds of jargon they use, but twit doesn’t appear to be part of it.

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JillGat, actually I found an enormous amount of fun facts sort of web sites that called a pregnant goldfish a twit. This was the first time the question came up.

critter42, the main thing about this twit business I don’t like is that goldfish don’t get pregnant. Every body agreeing to call pregnant goldfish twits will not get the fish knocked up.

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[[JillGat, actually I found an enormous amount of fun facts sort of web sites that called a pregnant goldfish a twit. This was the first time the question came up.]]

Right. But those Fun Facts/Trivia Lists/ Emails are the ONLY places you see this. So where did they get it?

Cecil has debunked a few other “facts” that constantly appear on those lists, too.

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I agree with the OP that new definitions do come about through usage rather than through someone writing it into a dictionary, but that doesn’t support this word. What you need, in order for this ‘fun fact’ to become part of the language, is for a significant number of people to use it in that sense. While these moronic e-mails might get a lot of people to think that the word has this particular definition, that doesn’t make it part of the language.

The people who read these e-mails don’t have much occasion to actually speak about pregnant fish (for the same reason they don’t talk about pregnant men), so usage isn’t changed. Usage is what makes a new word viable.

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Didn’t “Zoom” used to encourage us to make up our own words?

(Damn descriptivsts – oh, wait a minute, I am one!)

And, because it is inevitable, here’s Cecil on “gay”:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_271b.html

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If you just want to debate the issue “when does a word become part of the language?” then you could try Great Debates, which is more frequented than this forum (sob). But I think it could be discussed here too.

The OED contribution programme still pooh-poohs online citations:

So the first step would be finding the word “twit” used in the sense of “pregnant goldfish” in a non-virtual publication.

On the other hand, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (see here) made it into the OED with the description

So a made-up word can make it into the OED eventually. The problem I see with “twit” is that no one would use it in the sense of “pregnant goldfish”. Would anyone care to go into a pet store and ask the employees if they have any twits, and report their answer back to us?

11

When Jill originally asked about this, of course the first thing I did was hit Google. All the hits I got on the search criteria “goldfish twit” were to those “Did You know?” fun trivia sites. Pretty much immediately, it became clear that not only did they all have the little snippet on this worded exactly the same way, but the other items of trivia in their lists were the same, and presented in the same order. It seems some unknown, unaccountable database of this stuff made its way online, possibly in the early days of the web, and its been picked up by other sites, which have in turn let yet more sites use the info, giving the twit story a currency it probably doesn’t deserve. The sites carrying the “fun fact” tend to be humourous, private Geocities-type affairs, so I’d hardly call the largeish number of hits I got on this conclusive. I didn’t find a scrap I’d be willing to cite on the Dope.

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Concerning the ripe goldfish:

I ran across the following in Edwin Radford’s
“Unusual Words And How They Came To Be”, New York, 1946, The Philosophical Library.

TWERP. An expression of good-humoured contempt … but, in point of fact, the word existed a hundred years ago, when a twerp was the name given to a short-beaked racing pigeon flying from England to Antwerp.

One wonders.