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ktschwarz reminds me that the NY Times has rebooted On Language:

Written memorably by William Safire for most of its run, the original column was a mainstay of the magazine for 32 years until 2011. Now that social media, online communities and contemporary political discourse are transforming language profoundly — and these new grammars and vocabularies are flowing into large language models that, slowly but surely, are becoming a dominant force — we think it’s high time to bring the column back. The primary writer will be Nitsuh Abebe. His first column published earlier this week, on the word “lethality.” That follows a string of great columns Nitsuh has written in recent months about the em-dash, the neologism “cope,” the suffix “-maxxing” and the reluctance people have to use periods in texts.

I had actually planned to write about it last week, but that “lethality” essay (archived) annoyed me by being so focused on the news of the day. The new one (archived), on “agentic,” is more to my taste, paying greater attention to word history:

There are various reports and they all seem to agree: The tech world is currently awash in the concept of agency. It is, more specifically, extremely into the word “agentic,” which peppers the language of the tech-associated, the tech-adjacent, the tech-adjacent-adjacent.

That’s “agentic” as in, you know, having agency — possessing the capacity “to influence and control outcomes through assertive individual action,” as the Oxford English Dictionary has it. The word holds a lot of meaning in computing, but Silicon Valley aspirants seem just as eager to apply it to themselves. They talk about being agentic people; sometimes they dress up the idea in a little rhetorical suit and talk about the Highly Agentic Individual. They are describing the kind of person who simply acts, assertively, to shape the world, rather than seeking approval or meekly following the herd. Candidates for tech jobs get asked if they’re agentic (good) or mimetic (yuck). On X, people debate whether the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, is in fact “the most agentic person alive.” One poster laments the way a cold can ruin your workday: “You won’t make any deals, you won’t be an agentic person. You’re milquetoast.” Another just needs an adequately agentic aide to help schedule medical appointments.

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David Oks’s essay on citations is not central to my interests, but I know there are lots of Hatters who do science and will probably have things to say; I myself found it extremely enlightening. I’ll quote the start and let you click through for the rest:

Here are a few headlines from the world of science. […] So scientists are submitting AI-generated papers; reviewers are using AI to assess them; obviously some amount of low-quality AI-generated content will end up getting approved and published. Well-regarded journals have been caught publishing papers with classic ChatGPT-isms like “here is a possible introduction for your topic” or “as of my last knowledge update.” But that’s not all. Many of those AI-generated papers are being cited by articles in other peer-reviewed journals: and many of those articles, unsurprisingly, appear to be AI-generated themselves.

It’s pretty well-known now that science is “drowning in AI slop.” In that regard, it’s not alone: AI slop is steadily infiltrating every school and workplace in the country. But there’s something about all of this that puzzles me.

I get why students, for example, would want to avoid doing homework. But I don’t really understand why scientists would want to avoid doing science. Or, rather, why they’re so eager to use AI to produce a huge number of shoddy papers. No one forced them to become scientists. I imagine that most people who work as scientists chose to do so out of something like love for the subject. So why are scientists using AI to produce and submit so much garbage?

I don’t think that the answer actually has much to do with AI. It has to do, instead, with the incentives that govern scientific institutions. You could boil it down to one word: citations.

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I’ve been saying things like “that’s how I roll” for quite a while now, and it occurred to me to wonder about the history of the phrase. As it happens, there’s a 2013 Stack Exchange post about it; most of the suggested answers are guesswork and contradictory, but there’s one that cites the OED:

The OED says it’s US slang originally in the language of rap and hip-hop. It’s sense VII.36.f. (and sense VII.36.e. is “Let’s roll”), under sense VII:

To move or convey on wheels or rollers, and related senses.

This is their first quotation of the phrase:

1991 ‘Hammer’ & F. Pilate (song title), This is the way we roll.

So I checked the OED, which does indeed have it as sense VII.36.f.:

intransitive. U.S. slang (originally in the language of rap and hip-hop). To act, behave (in a certain way). Frequently in that’s how (also the way) I (we, etc.) roll.

But it’s not clear to me that they’re deriving it directly from the sense “To move or convey on wheels or rollers,” and when I checked Green’s I found 4 (f) “in fig. use, to exist, to conduct one’s life”:
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Tom Johnson’s LRB review (Vol. 48 No. 6 · 2 April 2026; archived) of The Experience of Work in Early Modern England by Jane Whittle, Mark Hailwood, Hannah Robb, and Taylor Aucoin opens with a passage containing a goodly selection of little-known specialized terms:

Adam Smith​ began his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by arguing that the division of labour was the key to the prosperity of advanced economies. It made the production of goods far more efficient, allowing the creation of cheap commodities that could be enjoyed by everyone. ‘The woollen coat,’ he writes, ‘which covers the day labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen.’ He listed the shepherds, wool sorters, carders, dyers, spinners, weavers, fullers and dressers who ‘must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production’. The division of labour wove all these people together in unknowing co-operation, such that ‘the very meanest person in a civilised country’ had at their disposal better stuff than ‘many an African king, the absolute masters of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages’. Civilisation itself consisted in the miracle of specialisation.

Smith was far less interested in what the division of labour looked like in practice. His breezy lists of workmen elide the generations of clever hands and centuries of folk knowledge required to make that coarse woollen coat. To begin with, you needed to know a shearling from a gimmer lamb, or hire someone who did. In 1611 Henry Bankes employed two shepherds, Durington and Blackwell, to value some lambs in Yorkshire; it turned out he was overpaying by sixpence a head. Then you had to set your sheep in a pasture, and send someone, perhaps a young servant like Jacob Jackson of Hurworth in County Durham, to mark their ears so that you knew which were yours (theft was common), and paint them with tar to keep them warm through the winter and spring. In June they would be brought down from the pastures and washed in a river before being sent to the shearing men. If you couldn’t afford sheep of your own, you could go into the fields after the clip and gather the leftover scraps.

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Anatoly Vorobey has a Facebook post that starts with a reference to a video in which Oleg Lekmanov compares a bunch of clips of people reading aloud the first stanza of Pushkin’s “Анчар” (The Upas Tree; there are a number of English translations, e.g. A.Z. Foreman, Michael Allen) to see if they read the last word in the second line as “раскалённой” (raskalyonnoi, the normal reading in modern Russian) or “раскаленной” (raskalennoi, with e as in Church Slavic, to rhyme with the final word of the stanza, “вселенной” [vselennoi] ‘universe’). Anatoly says it seems to him this is a sort of intelligentsia shibboleth, with a snobbish preference for the Church Slavic as “correct” (he quotes a textbook to that effect), whereas he thinks both pronunciations have a right to exist — a conclusion with which I, naturally, concur. One of his commenters brings up English rhymes like rove/love, but this seems to me a different, though parallel, case.

In any case, the Pushkin quote led me to look up the word анчар (apparently first used in this poem), which according to Russian Wiktionary (citing Vasmer) is borrowed from Dutch antjar, itself from Malay ančar. Amazingly (to me), the OED has an entry (from 1885) for antiar ‘The Upas tree of Java, Antiaris toxicaria; also, the poison obtained from it’; there are no citations, but there is an etymology: “< Javanese antjar, antschar.” And upas itself (entry from 1926) is “< Malay ūpas poison, in the combination pōhun (or pūhun) ūpas poison-tree.” All roads lead to Malaya.

Stephen Fried’s fond reminiscence of Jim Quinn (Philadelphia magazine, 10/19/2020) came out over five years ago, but I just discovered it, and since Quinn is one of my language heroes (first touted just a few weeks into the existence of LH, reinforced in 2004, 2007, and 2013) I wanted to share it with y’all. I’ll quote the language-related passages, but he led an interesting life in general, so I recommend the whole thing:

Jim Quinn was one of Philadelphia’s finest, funniest, and smartest writers — of longform journalism, essays about food and language, and poetry for the first four decades of his career, and later of fiction as well. He was also, arguably, the city’s longest-living, longest-haired, and most prolific link to the best things about the 1960s, maintaining throughout his 85 years a sense of wonder and humor, political commitment, righteous indignation, and shrugging indifference to authority. […]

Quinn could write the most gorgeous sentences. But much of the joy of his reportage was his amazing attention to details that told the story better than he could. “He describes everything, yes everything, in most specific terms since euphemism is a word he has never heard,” said the New York Times Book Review in 1972 of his first major book, Word of Mouth: A Completely New Kind of Guide to New York Restaurants. […]

In his late 20s, Quinn was convinced by friends to return to college. In 1963 he enrolled at Temple University, where he got involved in campus politics and anti-war protests. […] He was, at the time, working toward his PhD in English literature — writing a dissertation on the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid, and lots of his own poetry. But editors who were fans of his food writing started reaching out with assignments. […]

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My wife and I are reading Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet (see this post), and at one point a character refers to having “a long cool drink of nimbo.” Naturally I wanted to know what this “nimbo” might be; after some frustration, I realized it was a variant of nimbu: “There may be no better drink for beating the heat than a nimbu soda, a lime-and-soda drink that’s ubiquitous in India.” But what’s nimbu? Well, Hindi नींबू (nīmbū) ‘lemon/lime (fruit or tree)’ (Urdu نیمبو) is from Sanskrit निम्बू (nimbū), which is “Of Austroasiatic origin; compare Mundari लेम्बु (lembu). Compare also Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *limaw (‘lime, citrus’), whence Malay limau (‘citrus’).” And this is where it gets interesting, because the long list of descendants of the Hindi/Urdu word includes Classical Persian لیمو (lēmū, līmū), from which is derived Arabic لَيْمُون (laymūn), borrowed into Old French as lymon, which is the source of English lemon. Furthermore, lime (the fruit) is:

[French, from Spanish lima, from Arabic līma, from Persian līmū, lemon, any of various citrus fruits; akin to Hindi nimbū and Gujarati lību, lime, of Austroasiatic origin; akin to Mundari (Munda language of Jharkhand, India) lembu.]

So lemon and lime are doublets; I probably knew that at some point, but I certainly didn’t know all the details, which are a lot of fun (note that Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *limaw gets turned around in Fijian and Polynesian and becomes moli). And now I want a long cool drink of nimbo.

I’ve long been a fan of Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis (see this 2011 post), and I like Corey Robin’s take on it:

In that famous first chapter of Mimesis, Erich Auerbach does something that usually drives me insane. Introducing the story of Odysseus’ scar from Homer’s Odyssey, Auerbach writes, “Readers of the Odyssey will remember the well-prepared and touching scene in book 19, when….” Six pages later, when he introduces the story of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac in the Book of Genesis, Auerbach writes, “the story itself begins: everyone knows it….”

When contemporary academics do this kind of thing, make this gesture of knowingness, it drives me crazy, as I said. I want to cry out, no, everyone does not know it, readers will not remember! But in Auerbach’s case, I don’t mind it. Why not?

Because, despite his saying we all know the story, Auerbach always proceeds to narrate the story. He gives you, the reader, the details of the story, its plot, the relevant background. When he then undertakes his analysis, which follows his summary of the plot, we’re all working on the same page. He doesn’t make knowing references, without any support or concreteness. He doesn’t invoke authority to justify his claims. He doesn’t pile up concept upon concept, or context upon context, to get himself out of the work of argument, of demonstrating that what he is saying is indeed true, or at least has a justifiable claim upon our attention and engagement.

So despite his use of the “we,” which a generation of academics has taught us is exclusionary or creates a false idea of readerly consensus and audience, Auerbach actually works, hard, to create that “we.” By setting out his evidence, he invites us to disagree with him, to remove ourselves from that “we” if we have reasons to object to it. Despite our assumptions of the democratic progress we’ve made from the midcentury intellectual/critic to today’s intellectual/critic, the actual style and substance of that midcentury intellectual/critic’s engagement is far more democratic in some ways than that of much of our contemporary world.

I feel that’s exactly right; when I started on the book, I felt intimidated because I’d read hardly any of the works he references, but I found that his account of them gave me enough of a handle that I could immerse myself further if I so desired, and I could easily follow his argument. It wasn’t at all like reading a scholar of these degenerate latter days who constantly drops references to Žižek, Sloterdijk, & Co. for generalized shock and awe. I did not, however, appreciate the commenter on his post who felt compelled to write:

“In that famous first chapter…” Really? I mean, I’ve read a lot of books but I never heard of that one. Pot, kettle, etc.

Smug parading of one’s own ignorance is another blight on our times. Pull down thy vanity!

I recently ran across a very odd word (odd, that is, to those who don’t work in the relevant industries); I quote the OED entry (revised 2016):

gobo
noun²

Originally U.S.

1. Cinematography, Television, and Photography. A dark plate, screen, or mask used to shield a lens from light. Also (Theatre): a partial screen or mask used in front of a spotlight to project a shape or image or to reduce the light on stage.
1923 ‘Gobo’ and other utterances..are flung around a studio by camera men.
New York Times 21 October x. 5

1925 Elephant ear, a form of gobo consisting of an upright post with a black card or board suspended at right angles, used to shade the camera lens from overhead light.
Los Angeles Times 29 November b6
[…]

1994 Gobos can produce projected images up to 6m in diameter and can be used in conjunction with colour films, slides or moving images.
Museums Journal January 36/3

2. Cinematography and Audio Technology. A (portable) screen or shield used to prevent a microphone from picking up extraneous noise.

1930 Gobo, portable wall covered with sound-absorbing material.
Sel. Glossary Motion Picture Technician (Acad. Motion Pictures, Hollywood) 15/2

1931 A Gobo is a portable wall used in absorbing sound when talkies are being made. And an Elephant Ear is a small Gobo used on certain conversational close-ups.
Lowell (Massachusetts) Sun 1 October 14/6
[…]

2003 This session..is as good as it gets, musically and technically: no gobos, no headphones, no second takes.
JazzTimes September 128/1

It’s odd because it sounds funny, it’s odd because it’s used in two such different (though parallel) senses, and it’s odd because the etymology isn’t known — the OED’s guess is “Origin uncertain; perhaps < gob- (in go-between n.) + ‑o suffix.” You’d think with such a recent word somebody might have preserved the knowledge of how it came about.
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I hadn’t been aware of TYPO: The International Journal of Prototypes (at least I’m not aware of having been aware of it…), but I like the cheeky name; their new issue, #14, is out, and Alex Cigale, in a FB post, writes:

With my gratitude to Editors Norman Conquest and Paul Rosheim, I’m delighted to have 5 translations from the Russian of poems by Russian Futurist Elena Guro (circa 1910) in TYPO: The International Journal of Prototypes. Please consider purchasing Issue 14 to support the work of this restlessly inventive journal dedicated to keeping the spirit of literary Modernism alive. I’m particularly delighted to share the issue with poetry translations and introduction to Nikolai Zabolotsky, a member of Oberiu (second generation Russian Futurist), by Дмитрий Манин/Dmitry Manin, who presents a side of Zabolotsky, an acknowledged master of philosophical nature poetry, known to few English readers. There are also two “Biblical Sonnets” by Genrikh Sapgir of the Lianozovo School who helped revive the spirit of Russian Futurism post-Stalin. The issue includes translations from Italian, French, Hungarian, German (Rilke’s prose, “The Testament”), visual poetry by John Vieira and Kristen Szumyn, and much else that will keep this reader newly informed and entertained for some time to come. https://blackscatbooks.com/2026/03/31/typo-14-spring-break/

Suddenly autumnal vernal

The earth breathed with willows into the near sky;
under the skittish clamor of raindrops it thawed.
It may be that she felt surpassed,
perhaps, she had been slighted,
but she continued believing in miracles.
Believing in her own high window:
small sky among the dark branches,
she never deceived us – guilty in nothing,
and so here she sleeps, breathing….
and it has become warm.

1912

I really like that translation; it has the ring of an English modernist poem of the era, say by Pound. Guro’s original Russian, “Вдруг весеннее,” is here. I don’t seem to have mentioned Elena Guro at LH (the stress in Guro is on the second syllable — apparently it’s from French Gouraud); she was a painter, playwright, poet, and fiction writer, and probably would be better known if she hadn’t died of leukemia at 36.

Update. Alex realized he’d had a slip of the brain when doing the draft translation, and he’s changed “autumnal” to “vernal” to match the Russian (see my comment below).