Some people can walk by a bees’ nest every day and pay no attention to it. Me, I have to take a stick and beat on it. – My friend, Fred.
Some people commented on the photo of a memorial that I posted on a social media site. One of the commenters suggested that police reports about the tragic event should be made, “even if they’re duplicitous.” I could have quietly walked by that bees’ nest, but I chose to pick up a stick. I commented that the police “(don’t) want deceitful information.” And just like that, a word fight broke out.
I had already taken a shortcut to the definition of duplicitous by using the dictionary app on my laptop, just to make sure my understanding of the word was supported by the facts and that my comment would be appropriately corrective. The commenter doubled down, saying that the police would accept any information and would “sort out the nonsense.” But one respondent claimed that the word duplicitous has more than one definition, including “duplicate.” After reading that, I took a deeper dive into the dictionary.
The Oxford English Dictionary was started more than 150 years ago, and its 20 volumes have definitions for more than 600,000 words. Years ago, I heard on a radio program of a shorter version of the OED, and I leapt from my seat and spurred my steed to the bookstore. I left with the sixth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, two fat volumes containing more than 3,700 pages. As an ardent bibliophile, I do not find it to be onerous duty to pull a five-pound book from my shelves, thunk it onto a desk and open the cover. When told that “duplicitous” can mean “duplicate,” I lunged for the OED, the definitive source.
My Shorter OED defines duplicitous (adjective) as “characterized by or displaying duplicity; esp. deceitful, two-faced.” The origin is from duplicity; the number one definition of duplicity is “The quality of being deceitful in manner or conduct; the practice of being two-faced, of dishonestly acting in two opposing ways.” At that point in my page-turning, I was feeling confident about my understanding of the word. Then, things got interesting as I continued to read. Definition 2 is “The state of being numerically or physically double; doubleness.” Perhaps that’s the definition that was being used by the person who defended the use of “duplicitous” to mean “double.” The example in the OED was “The duplicity of Saturn’s ring.” But the citation included the notation that the usage was archaic, dating to the late 16th Century. The ball was back in my court. Another respondent to the post was someone who ostensibly defended my assertion, indicating that there was a “Law” definition of duplicity. The OED noted that definition as “The coupling of two or more matters in one plea or charge.” But I had already tapped out of the word fight, at least the online version. I was reveling in the joy of submerging myself in the pages of a dictionary.
I’ve noted before, (ad nauseam, I’m sure) that I love words. When young, I brought home a discarded dictionary from the University of Pittsburgh library and sat and read it as if it was a thrilling page-turner of a novel. My sister is a journalist who was as avid a reader as I was. She would have enjoyed my word fight, having once corrected the host of a program she produced on the proper usage of a plural verb after a plural noun.
I love a good word fight.
cjon3acd@att.net