{"id":375,"date":"2008-08-11T19:19:56","date_gmt":"2008-08-11T23:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=375"},"modified":"2008-08-11T19:19:56","modified_gmt":"2008-08-11T23:19:56","slug":"the-most-amazing-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/the-most-amazing-word\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Amazing Word"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in my college days, I took a course in semantics<\/span>. One of the more revelatory learnings I acquired from that course’s professor<\/a> was the power of function words: all the “stuff” which fills in among the supposedly more robust verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. Presented with a paragraph of all those “important” words and no function words, it’s hard to make sense of it. Just a pile of verbiage, really. On the other hand, a paragraph of nothing except function words instantly, in your mind’s eye, acquires all the strength of an understandable structure — like a skyscraper’s underlying girders — because the function words define the relationships<\/em> among words.<\/p>\n

A classic example* is the first stanza of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky,” as seen here with the function (and other “null”) words dimmed out:<\/p>\n

‘Twas<\/span> brillig<\/strong>, and the<\/span> slithy toves<\/strong>
\nDid<\/span> gyre<\/strong> and<\/span> gimble<\/strong> in the<\/span> wabe<\/strong>.
\nAll<\/span> mimsy<\/strong> were the<\/span> borogoves<\/strong>
\nAnd the<\/span> mome rath outgrabe<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…and here, with the function words emphasized:<\/p>\n

‘Twas<\/strong> brillig<\/span>, and the<\/strong> slithy toves<\/span>
\nDid<\/strong> gyre<\/span> and<\/strong> gimble<\/span> in the<\/strong> wabe<\/span>.
\nAll<\/strong> mimsy<\/span> were the<\/strong> borogoves<\/span>
\nAnd the<\/strong> mome rath outgrabe<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A few weeks ago, agent Nathan Bransford posted two open-ended questions on his blog, a week apart: “What’s Your Favorite Word?<\/a>” and “What’s Your Least Favorite Word?<\/a>” I can’t swear to this, yet I believe every single nominee in both categories — including my own — was an “important” word. Let’s take all those commenters at their (ahem) word, and assume those are their favorites and least favorites.<\/p>\n

Per the title of this post here, though, what’s the single most amazing word in the English language — the word whose weight is out of all proportion to its size and apparent significance? I bet it’s a function word. Here’s my nominee:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

but<\/strong><\/p>\n

I know. It’s (haha) just a conjunction. Think about it a little, though.<\/p>\n

It stands with “and” as a handy-dandy way to join lists of words or phrases, especially entire sentences, to one another. Yet “and” (which probably appears more frequently) is superfluous in just about any context; you can replace “and” with a simple punctuation mark (comma, semi-colon, period even) and your list will be no less meaningful than before.<\/p>\n

“But” adds a whole new level of complexity. Even the very form of the word, the shape of the letters, is suggestive: the squat, low center of gravity in the middle; the upraised arms at the ends — at the left (facing back at what preceded) closed off, the one to the right open. It’s like Atlas, holding a world in each hand… yet open only to the meaning of what comes after.<\/p>\n

Indeed, not in every circumstance yet in most, “but” says, in no uncertain terms: Ignore what you just heard or read. Attend only to what follows.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s try some examples:<\/p>\n

I’d really like to see you tonight, but I have other plans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

versus:<\/p>\n

I have other plans, but I’d really like to see you tonight.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or:<\/p>\n

Feel free to do anything you want, but do not hurt the prisoner.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

versus:<\/p>\n

Do not hurt the prisoner, but feel free to do anything you want.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or:<\/p>\n

I’m sick of rain, but I know it’s good for the farmers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

versus:<\/p>\n

I know the farmers appreciate it, but I’m sick of rain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See? In every case, even though the clauses in each version are semantically (and sometimes literally) identical, but<\/em> changes everything. It shoves what came before under a rug, while seeming to give it pride of place at the beginning of the sentence. It sets up a reader’s (or listener’s) expectations, signaling to him or her You’re a fool if you think I’m about to take the former point of view<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In writing, in speaking, and of course in reading and listening, beware the but<\/em>. It’s a tool of seduction. A weapon of betrayal. When you place or encounter a but<\/em>, watch the way it hoists the two halves of a sentence, say, or heaps a dozen list items up in one hand only to toss them over its shoulder for the sake of the one item in the other.<\/p>\n

Scary, scary. Three letters. Mere function word, yes. But what a word.<\/p>\n

* Miss Palladino’s actual example was a sentence which went something like, “The [somethings] were jambing on the trixles.” I’ve forgotten what the [somethings] were, but “jambing” and “trixles” always stayed with me. (As did the function words, obviously.) While working on this post I was delighted to find that a little homage to her which I’d planted on the Web some years ago still exists. I’d been working on a contract to help Microsoft document one of their XML-related features in Internet Explorer, and created the example shown here<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in my college days, I took a course in semantics. One of the more revelatory learnings I acquired from that course’s professor was the power of function words: all the “stuff” which fills in among the supposedly more robust verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. Presented with a paragraph of all those “important” words and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,5,50],"tags":[310,311,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-06_writing","8":"category-language-writing_cat","9":"tag-but","10":"tag-semantics","11":"tag-mary-anne-palladino","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-63","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions\/402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}