William Safire's take on "twee."

[Misnomer]

Every Monday I read The New York Times Magazine online, specifically for Randy Cohen’s “The Ethicist” and William Safire’s “On Language” columns. Imagine my happy surprise, upon reading the latter, to discover that one of this weekend’s words was “twee!” I actually laughed out loud.

Here’s a link to the column, but registration is required so I’ll quote part of it here:

Writing about the film “Chungking Express” in The Times, Karen Durbin observes, “None of this is cloying or twee… . .” And in a song about sitting down for a nice cup of English tea, Paul McCartney sings that the notion is “very twee, very me.”

British usage of the word is spreading to America. Coined a century ago in Punch, it means “overly dainty; quaint; too cute for words.” In 1970, the magazine Melody Maker wrote, “Most of the songs were too twee, and the rest seemed to be too raunchy.” The etymology is in baby talk, the infantile pronunciation of “sweet.” The increase in usage comes from the steady media derogation since the 80’s of a tender countertrend in British popular music that rejected the macho attitude of rock.

“In the U.K., the term twee is used only as an insult,” says Matt Haynes of Sarah Records, home to many of the twee-pop groups. “It means ‘unbearably cute with no real substance.’ But later, twee-pop was used to denote a certain style of music, and people began to look on it as a description rather than an insult.” Will Hermes, an American music writer, defines it as “nonmacho pop music with an indie-rock sensibility that critiques and tweaks rock’s butch posturing.”

[AskNott]

I guess that explains the little yellow popstar, Twee T. Pie.

[WordMan]

I read it this weekend, too. Seemed like any other interesting Safire column on words.

How come you are posting about it - do you disagree with any part of what he wrote? Just like the word?

I liked his other commentary on “raunch” - I hadn’t realized that it was minted as recently as the 1960’s - I would’ve expected it to be much older.

PS: a friend of mine edits the NY Times Magazine. He says the the Ethicist, Randy Cohen, is a genuinely nice guy. I find that somehow reassuring.

[Misnomer]

@WordMan

How come you are posting about it - do you disagree with any part of what he wrote? Just like the word?

Not long ago the word “twee” was introduced to the SDMB … I remember threads about it, and it’s become something of an in-joke (at least, that’s how it seems to me). I’ve yet to hear it used outside of this place, so when I saw it in Safire’s column I immediately thought, “Hey! ‘Twee!’ I must post about this on the boards!”

Sorry: I probably should have mentioned all of that in the OP.

PS: a friend of mine edits the NY Times Magazine. He says the the Ethicist, Randy Cohen, is a genuinely nice guy. I find that somehow reassuring.

So do I!

[Encinitas]

It began with this pit thread by guinnog.