The other day, I got halfway into using the phrase “in fine fiddle” before cutting myself off. “Wait, fine … ‘fettle?’ What’s the right phrase? I feel like it’s ‘fettle.’ But what is a fettle?”
This sort of thing happens all the time in English, which I am not the first native speaker to observe must be a complete nightmare to learn as a second language. Here’s the confusing situation: “Fettle” is what’s called a fossil word — an English word that’s barely used except in a specific idiom. It once was known to English speakers as a word for status or condition. I probably thought the word was “fiddle” because the wires in the cliche lobe of my brain crossed with the place where I store “fit as a fiddle.” Fossil words are interesting because they can only be learned by rote, and people who otherwise successfully feel their way into using idiomatic and stylish conversational English will fail when they try to fake it through these weird spots. I regularly read otherwise-literate writers who, perfectly defensibly, say they’re “chomping at the bit” to do something they are eager and excited to do. The phrase is “champing at the bit,” but the verb “to champ” is another fossil whose proper usage is only really preserved in this one stock phrase.
A more complex case: “gantlet.” Certain fussier style guides insist the idiom is, properly, “run the gantlet,” not “gauntlet.” Gantlet comes from a disused term for “lane,” and running it was a form of punishment in which people were beaten by rows of stick-wielding soldiers on either side — whereas “gauntlet” refers to a suit of armor’s glove. Knights challenging other knights would “throw down the gauntlet,” and others would accept the challenge by taking it up. Today, some publishers still insist on “run the gantlet,” but “run the gauntlet” has become acceptable through centuries of more common usage. Arguably both “gantlet” and “gauntlet” are fossil words, existing mainly within these phrases. Although in a sort of linguistic Jurassic Park situation of technology bringing life back from a fossil, the literal meaning of the lone word “gauntlet” is probably becoming better-known to players of fantasy video games in which characters wear armor.
This brings me to one of the most egregious pieces of moralistic word-policing I have ever encountered. According to Scientific American, “The popular term ‘quantum supremacy,’ which refers to quantum computers outperforming classical ones, has inescapable racist overtones.” The thrust is that the word “supremacy” is effectively a fossil word, as it only, or primarily, exists in the phrase “white supremacy.”
Per Scientific American: “The word supremacy — having ‘more power, authority or status than anyone else’ — is closely linked to ‘white supremacy.’ This isn’t supposition; it’s fact. The Corpus of Contemporary American English finds ‘white supremacy’ is 15 times more frequent than the next most commonly used two-word phrase, ‘judicial supremacy.’” The main problem with this argument is that, besides the fact that “white supremacy” is one of many phrases in which “supremacy” appears, “supremacy” is not a word that only appears in idiomatic phrases. It’s a standard, non-archaic word all its own.
Perhaps the authors don’t know the brand Supreme, the idea of naval supremacy, the supreme allied commander of NATO, the supremacy clause of the Constitution, or Taco Bell’s Taco Supreme. What does Diana Ross think of this, anyway?
Out of this ignorance, the authors suggest using “quantum primacy” to redress the imagined evil. Primacy, though? Don’t they know they are associating physics models with the sexually coercive immoral historical practice of prima nocta?
