Scunt

[poliphilo]

George Orwell believed that words come before ideas- that, for example, in order to form the concept "tiger" we first have to form the word "tiger". I don't know if this is true or not- I don't suppose anybody does-  but I think it's plausible.

As does Stephen Fry, who develops it in his blog, suggesting that the quality of a word affects the quality of the concept it designates. If the word is weak our grasp of the concept will be fuzzy.  He writes about encountering a huge graffito in London (by Banksy, I believe) which fills the side of a house with the slogan One Nation under CCTV- and feeling that its impact is undermined by the feebleness of the final word (if it is a word). How can you get indignant at such a playful, internally rhyming acronym?  (Seeseeteevee- it could be the name of a character from a CBeebies show) .  Maybe, he suggests, we'd be less placid under continual suveillance if we had an angrier, more visceral word for it. He suggests "scunt".  As in, "I passed three scunts on my way to the office" or "I just got scunted" or One nation under scunt.

I think he's onto something. And I'm adopting the word. From now on, as far as I'm concerned, a CCTV camera is a "scunt". Pass it on.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I also think Orwell has things backwards, though what he's saying sounds like a simplified version of the things Wittgenstein says about language and communication. I'm still not sure whether Wittgenstein is incredibly profound or whether he's just stating the bleeding obvious, but G is studying his stuff at the moment in preparation for his new Ph.D. project.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It seems likely that Orwell would have read Wittgenstein- or, at least, picked up his ideas.

I tried to read the Tractatus once. I believe I got halfway down the first page.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Orwell and Wittgenstein were certainly contemporaries and I think lots of intellectuals were reading Wittgenstein at the time.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Or pretending to read him :)

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Currently G and I are speculating that the phrase "wittering on" derives from Wittgenstein's lectures at Oxford and Cambridge. Apparently he was not the clearest or most entertaining of lecturers! I've tried Googling but no one seems to have a derivation for the verb "to witter" and Wittgenstein was sometimes referred to as "Witters". The timing fits too, so it makes as much sense as any other attempt at derivation. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd like to believe it's true.

I think "witter" is a fairly new word. I don't believe I've come across it in writers earlier than the mid 20th century.