# Shibboleth: its a word! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 31, 2007, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792 "2007-12-31T13:09:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Suda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@Suda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suda)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/1 "2007-12-31T13:09:19Z")
you can’t imagine how confused I was reading an article just now that kept referring to shibboleth. “Why would a random website refer to a doper as if readers are meant to know who that is!?” FTR Shibboleth: 1. A word or pronunciation that distinguishes people of one group or class from those of another. 2. a. A word or phrase identified with a particular group or cause; a catchword. b. A commonplace saying or idea. 3. A custom or practice that betrays one as an outsider. Did other people know this or am I just ignorant? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/2 "2007-12-31T13:17:42Z")
[QUOTE=Suda] Did other people know this or am I just ignorant? 🙂 [/QUOTE] I am familiar with it - I remember first encountering it in an old, paperback edition of Ripley’s Believe it or Not, 2nd Edition. It presented the word with text that sounded like a sideshow barker. I would describe it as a cool, obscure word that word-types really dig and are likely to know about. …and a cool Doper. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/3 "2007-12-31T13:25:05Z")
[QUOTE=Suda] Did other people know this or am I just ignorant? 🙂 [/QUOTE] 'Fraid so… ---
**Author:** ![ErinPuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dbc845/32.png) [@ErinPuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ErinPuff)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/4 "2007-12-31T13:26:47Z")
I learned it from The West Wing (it’s the title of an episode in season 2). ---
**Author:** ![Idlewild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8491ac/32.png) [@Idlewild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idlewild)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/5 "2007-12-31T13:26:56Z")
It’s in the bible, so I learned it as a kid. It never occurred to me that it wasn’t a well-known word. I suppose it is a bit of an odd one. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/6 "2007-12-31T13:31:22Z")
I don’t recall knowing it until I joined this board, but I’ve seen it used here (other than the doper name.) ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/7 "2007-12-31T13:35:32Z")
[QUOTE=Idlewild] It’s in the bible, so I learned it as a kid. It never occurred to me that it wasn’t a well-known word. I suppose it is a bit of an odd one. [/QUOTE] Yup. Just the word to have handy when you suspect you’re dealing with an undercover Ephraimite: > [@](#): > > 4 Jephthah then called together the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. The Gileadites struck them down because the Ephraimites had said, “You Gileadites are renegades from Ephraim and Manasseh.” 5 The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he replied, “No,” 6 they said, "All right, say ‘Shibboleth.’ " He said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time. (Judges 12) ---
**Author:** ![Suda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@Suda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suda)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/8 "2007-12-31T13:35:43Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] 'Fraid so… [/QUOTE] I can live with this, consider ignorance fought! ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Tonya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/4491bb/32.png) [@Queen\_Tonya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Tonya)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/9 "2007-12-31T13:35:47Z")
I learned it here too. I don’t recall ever running across it anywhere else. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/10 "2007-12-31T13:36:26Z")
[QUOTE=ErinPuff] I learned it from The West Wing (it’s the title of an episode in season 2). [/QUOTE] Me, as well! ---
**Author:** ![A.R.Cane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@A.R.Cane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.R.Cane)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/11 "2007-12-31T13:41:07Z")
I encountered it as a user name, belonging to a gay woman. I knew it as a vague biblical reference until I saw that episode of West Wing and then understood the context. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/12 "2007-12-31T14:08:58Z")
[QUOTE=Suda] Did other people know this or am I just ignorant? 🙂 [/QUOTE] Well sure those of us _in the know_ know it…if you don’t know it, you must be an outsider! \*peers at \*\*Suda \*_suspiciously_ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/13 "2007-12-31T14:30:14Z")
[QUOTE=WordMan] I am familiar with it - I remember first encountering it in an old, paperback edition of Ripley’s Believe it or Not, 2nd Edition. It presented the word with text that sounded like a sideshow barker. I would describe it as a cool, obscure word that word-types really dig and are likely to know about. …and a cool Doper. 🙂 [/QUOTE] I learned it from Ripley’s too, with the example of a plant that was carried on Santo Domingo by what we’d call today Death Squads. A person’s life would depend on if they gave the French or Spanish name for it. Perhaps a lot of Dopers of a certain age got their start reading Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and MAD magazine, proving the theory that a mind must first be warped before it can be expanded. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/14 "2007-12-31T14:38:18Z")
I first saw it in a William Safire “On Language” column about georgraphical shibboleths. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/15 "2007-12-31T14:42:16Z")
It was in one of those Word of the Day calendars for me back in 1996 or 1997. It’s a good word though, I like it and I use it sometimes, but it’s uncommon enough that it tends to muck up conversations. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/16 "2007-12-31T15:10:06Z")
I learned it from William Safire. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/17 "2007-12-31T15:56:41Z")
I learned about it when I was in the Masonic Lodge – it’s one of the passwords in the lower degrees, I don’t remember which one. That was the first time I heard the biblical story, too. None of the other Masons knew whether the Gileadites made up the word “shibboleth” or whether it existed with some other meaning. ---
**Author:** ![A.R.Cane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@A.R.Cane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.R.Cane)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/18 "2007-12-31T16:08:28Z")
[QUOTE=Sunrazor] I learned about it when I was in the Masonic Lodge – it’s one of the passwords in the lower degrees, I don’t remember which one. That was the first time I heard the biblical story, too. None of the other Masons knew whether the Gileadites made up the word “shibboleth” or whether it existed with some other meaning. [/QUOTE] "The story behind the word is recorded in the biblical Book of Judges. The word shibboleth in ancient Hebrew dialects meant ‘ear of grain’ (or, some say, ‘stream’). Some groups pronounced it with a sh sound, but speakers of related dialects pronounced it with an s. In the story, two Semitic tribes, the Ephraimites and the Gileadites, have a great battle. The Gileadites defeat the Ephraimites, and set up a blockade to catch the fleeing Ephraimites. The sentries asked each person to say the word shibboleth. The Ephraimites, who had no sh sound in their language, pronounced the word with an s and were thereby unmasked as the enemy and slaughtered." From here: [Words in English: The Story of the Shibboleth](http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/shibboleth.html) ---
**Author:** ![Maldwyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9adbd/32.png) [@Maldwyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maldwyn)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/19 "2007-12-31T16:12:05Z")
I learnt the word via a crack in the floor at [Tate Modern](http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/dorissalcedo/default.shtm). Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth is the first work to intervene directly in the fabric of the Turbine Hall ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792/20 "2007-12-31T16:48:26Z")
Without reading the rest of the replies yet… I thought it was fairly common knowledge. It’s from the Bible. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shibboleth-its-a-word/431792.md?page=2)