Over on Chateau Heartiste, everybody’s favorite pickup-artist-turned-racist-shithead-with-delusions-of-literary-grandeur Heartiste is getting pretty worked up about Confederate statues and, er, high-speed rail.
The Confederate statues being torn down across the South are just the latest battle fronts opened up by shitlibs who obey the credo that a good offense is the best defense. As the shitlib religion sits on a very shaky foundation that the Maul-Right is currently rupturing with seismic waves of realtalk, it behooves shitlibs to press their hate machine forward, into enemy territory bla bla bla blabbity blab blab bloo bloo.
Ok, I got a little bored there, and you probably did too. He finally comes to the point:
The lesson: never give the Left an inch. They’ll take a parsec. Confederate statues today, books authored by White men tomorrow, until it finally reaches end game: second class status for all Whites outside of a few Acela elites who sufficiently grovel at the altar of anti-Whitism.
Acela elites? Acela is a regional “high speed” rail line on the east coast that can only run at top speed on less than 30 miles of track because our rail infrastructure is so crappy. Apparently the people who ride it are all seeekret Soros race-traitor Illuminati who conduct dark anti-white rituals on the train’s altar cars. Who knew?
I always thought “behoove” meant “benefit”.
My parents would say things like, “It might behoove you to start your paper earlier than the night before it is due”.
@Lea
That’s a reasonable assumption given the context your parents used it in.
It’s a complex word and concept, rolling up the sense of an obligation and the notion of behaviour that is fitting to a person’s station or occupation in life.
Language isn’t, as some believe, prescriptive. Words gain and lose their meanings according to how they are used by everyone, every day, not by how a dictionary defines them. Reading and hearing examples of a word in context can really help to get a feel for complex words.
I think a more or less direct synonym for ‘behoove’ is ‘befit’.
A longer and maybe less direct synonym would be the phrase ‘reflect well on’.
It would behoove you to study for that test before dinner. // It would reflect well on you to study for that test before dinner.
It does not behoove one to use rare words with the intention to impress. // It does not reflect well on one to use rare words with the intention to impress.
I think it’s reasonable for people to have a negative reaction to ‘behoove’ in particular, because it tends to be used while scolding or instructing someone on the correct way to behave, which is generally not a pleasant experience for the person being scolded. So if that is what someone associates the word with, of course they’ll have a negative impression of it.
And in general, I think it’s very common for people to have been made to feel inadequate, undereducated, ignorant, etc. for not knowing a word. I even remember teachers in my high school having nasty attitudes towards students who didn’t recognize a word they considered to be ‘common’ or ‘easy’. =/
@ preuxfox
Ooh, meta! Love it. 🙂
@ lucrece (my reflection, sorry 80s flashback)
It’s interesting in law how some words are ‘frozen’ in the time that a law was passed. So although the everyday meaning is now different we still have to, confusingly, use it in the original sense. For example there are at least three various, and contradictory, meanings of ‘malice’ as it evolved over time.
It’s also handy to refer to people as ‘sophisticated’ when you want to imply they’re a compulsive liar but not get beaten up.
@Alan I do like to go meta when I can 😛
I work in loan/mortgage servicing and I get to see a lot of legal documents, and it’s been very interesting to learn how to read them for exactly this reason. The definition of a word in a legal document is often not the same definition we would use for that word in regular/modern speech.
And then there’s the world of computer coding, which develops new definitions for words out of necessity…it would behoove me to go assist my coworker, she just said ‘why does this sound like some kind of wizard spell?’ and then read me a mysterious error that had the word ‘invocation’ in it…I think we might need tech support for this one!
Francesca,
I love this idea so much.
re “It behoves* X to do Y”
(* behoves in the UK, behooves in the US)
approximately = it is right and fitting for X to do Y/it is incumbent upon X to do Y
(just in case “fitting” or “incumbent” should happen to throw up any useful translation links for Valentine)
Confederation monuments – like our UK monuments to our own historical slavers and race-mass-murderers, I wish these things could be kept in some kind of museum of shame. So we can decry the past without denying the shit that was done; I sometimes feel that simply removing monuments is too good for ’em (or rather, the people concerned, who deserve to be reviled).
With the faux gothic scene dressing and the pretentious use of words, I can only assume Aurini is channeling Garth Marenghi…
Whoa, that slippery slope got steep fast. “Today, some statues come down. Tomorrow, white slavery!”
…which is what the Tea Party said about the Affordable Care Act too, if I recall…..
These guys should be glad that the descendants of the enslaved aren’t interested in simplistic revenge for past wrongs. But then again, they’re only projecting what THEY would do, so of course one can’t expect any more intelligent reflections from them.
Sometimes, even picking one widely-known definition of a word causes that confusion. eg. “while”.
In programming, “while [condition] do [action]” means that [action] is taken as long as [condition] is true. But in some UK dialects, “while” is used to mean the same thing as “until” – which, to the programmer, is the exact opposite of “while”.
If that definition becomes the popularly-understood one, then the code will start to look like those laws that use “frozen” versions.
When I hear/read “it behooves you”, I picture a horse (or possibly a pony) sincerely laying one front hoof on somebody’s shoulder while giving them advice. Is that just me?
@ newt
Not any more.
@Alan
I’d honestly never considered that as the reason for the strangulated and tortuous phrasing of statutes and legal documents, but it makes so much sense!
In that vein, can you illuminate the meaning of the word ‘aggravated’ in the criminal code? As in, ‘aggravated assault’, ‘aggravated burglary’, etc. In common usage, saying something ‘aggravated’ anything seems almost to be a way of minimising its seriousness, but it’s the opposite in law. Just what were they on when they came up with that?
LOL! I do a similar trick with things I don’t necessarily like, but which I have to comment on in public for some reason: I call them ‘interesting’. It’s such a great catch-all! No-one can say you’ve said anything negative about the play/movie/opera when you call it interesting plus, it can actually be a positive review. Amongst friends though, if I think something’s shite, I’ll tell them it’s very […significant pause…] “interesting”. Extra sarcasm with your movie review, anyone? ?
@PreuxFox
Ooooh – that’s really quite close! I don’t think they’re exactly the same due to their common usages. As you pointed out, ‘behoves’ somewhat implies a mild reprimand, which isn’t there with ‘befit’. So interesting though! Maybe I’ll ditch my teaching degree and become a lexicographer???
I guess aggravated is literally “made-more-grave” (grave meaning serious/severe, like in French or Spanish etc. and presumably Latin)
I now wish to be given sage counsel by a pony. I suppose there could be a lot of behoving (or behooving) in the MLP fandom? I certainly hope so.
“Behoove” is a strange word; it has specific formats for the positive and negative case that are almost always followed. The positive case is “it behooves you” and the negative case is “it ill behooves you”. The latter is indicative of the archaic style of “behoove”; the use of “ill” as an adverb is sadly disappearing over time.
“Behoove” is a word rich in denotation and connotation. It refers to that which is socially desirable and appropriate; what you should do based on your situation, and based on what’s expected of you. It’s that which is right and proper, and thus it’s a word steeped in social structure (and class roles, which ties back into PoM’s comments), but also in how we present ourselves, and the expectations we create within a given situation or circumstance.
I could accurately say that, because I previously mentioned that I was a linguist and a lover of this specific word, it behooves me to try to define it and provide some context for it. I could also accurately say that it ill behooves me to use such words poorly or inappropriately, for the same reasons.
There’s a pretty close analogue in the French “il faut”, which is usually translated as “it is necessary” but also means “it is proper”. “Behoove” is less mandatory and more judgmental in comparison. You don’t need to do what behooves you, but if you don’t, people will look askance at you and mutter imprecations.
[Sorry, once I started talking about “behoove” it was difficult not to throw in more archaisms. I even removed several! :P]
@ lucrece
Heh, I’ll give it a try. But as always with anything legal “it’s complicated”. And please note this is from a Brit-centric perspective.
In law we talk about ‘aggravating’ features (which make an offence more serious) and ‘mitigating’ features (which make an offence less serious)
Sometimes there are specific ‘aggravated’ offences. So for example, over here we have the regular offence of burglary. That’s entering property as a trespasser with an intention to steal, damage, assault, or commit a sexual offence.
But we also have a separate offence of ‘aggravated burglary’. That’s where you do any of the above, but also have a weapon with you.
Similarly, if I nick your car that’s ‘taking without consent’ (or ‘twocking’ as the kids say), but if I then crash it or run someone over that’s ‘aggravated vehicle taking’.
This also comes into play in sentencing. Judges start with a particular sentence in mind, then consider aggravating and mitigating features. Rather confusingly there are ‘statutory’ aggravating features that a judge must take into account and general aggravating features that a judge may take into account.
This is all formalised to an extent nowadays. “Sentencing by fucking spreadsheet” was how one judge friend described it.
Perhaps the best demonstration is to refer you to one of the sentencing guidelines documents that judges here use. You’ll see how the aggravating and mitigating features are dealt with. I’ve chosen the sexual offences guide. I hope that isn’t too triggering for anyone. But I know some people here a have an interest in this area so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone.
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Sexual-Offences-Definitive-Guideline-web3.pdf
As for the etymology, aggravate comes from the Latin for ‘heavy’ and that evolved to mean ‘more serious’ by way of metaphor. It’s like how we say “you don’t appreciate the gravity of the situation” (which comes from the same root).
Hope this makes some sense?
I actually had a real example of etymology and the law once.
Clients up for ‘affray’. That’s where your violent conduct would scare passers-by. The judge was a bit old school though.
“Affray comes from the Norman French word ‘affrayer’; to ‘terrify’. In my day people lost limbs in affrays. This was just a punch up”.
He then told the CPS to take the case back the the magistrates court and accept a plea to a public order offence.
Does the British criminal code make a huge effing deal about “cattle”? I ask because the Criminal Code of Canada, which is obviously based on British criminal law, uses the word approximately one bazillion times. There are separate offences to do with cattle. There are more severe sentencing guidelines if the offence involved cattle. You’re left to wonder why the Code is so damned obsessed with cows in particular over every other living thing on the planet. And then you learn that the definition of “cattle” they’re using includes goats, sheep, horses, etc.
@ viscaria
A friend took the Washington State Bar exam and every question was about logging.
But yeah, we’re not quite as obsessed, but there are a lot of cases. The ‘cattle = everything’ cropped up once in a case I had about whether you could be charged for being drunk in charge of a cow (you definitely can for horses).
“Drunk in charge of (X)” is kind of my thing…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-347430/In-dock-Drunk-disabled-buggy-driver.html
Got to love the irregular and odd, like cleave. How satisfying is it that you can cleave to someone or cleave something in two (and how nice that an anthropomorphic figure could quite happily have both a cleft chin and cloven hooves. It probably behooves (or behoves) it to have ’em)
Damn, I didn’t refresh before posting and missed the affray.
@Francesca:
I presume you mean MUDs/MUCKs/MUSHes, that sort of thing? That’s the main place I know where ‘pose’ is used for an action like that.
It can be a bit of a balancing act. Too little description, and the person on the other end thinks you’re not really into this. Too much, and you start to sound a bit self-absorbed. Or trying to over-control what’s happening.
@Oppo
I shall continue to plan this thing out, then.
@Jenora
That’s right, although I was unsure if any of you enterprising folk know about MU*s. They’re relatively obscure.
Now we need a Mammotheer MU* Club as well! I take it you’re also active in the community, somewhat at least?
@Francesca:
Yes, somewhat. They may be relatively obscure now, at least. They were less so when I started.
I’ll date myself by noting that my first MUD was Islandia. (I joined in March of 1990.) I remember when they had to start deleting things because the database at the time had a fixed limit of 65533 actual objects in it. I have a character on another (still-running) MUCK where I don’t actually know when the character was created, because ‘object creation times’ weren’t added to the database until some months afterward (in 1991). So what is listed as my character creation time is actually the time when they added object creation times to the code.
… I just realized I’ve been involved with some of this for over half my life now.