Stormy weather
How 'Nor'easter' became standard, even though we don't talk that way.
When I first wrote about the northeaster debate a decade ago, I quoted Tom Halsted, who campaigns against nor'easter from his perch on Cape Ann. It's a "fake, pseudo-Yankee neologism," he writes in an online essay, an old-salt affectation that "should be shunned as silly and pretentious."
Several years later, Cape Cod native George Hand e-mailed to second the motion. When he was growing up, the pronunciation was nawtheastah, he said. And the r-less Boston accent would not logically produce nor'easter; that would be like pronouncing Dorchester as Dor'ester instead of Doahchestah.
But where did nor'easter blow in from? These days, there are far more searchable sources available than there were in 1998. I decided to take another look.
Now as then, the Oxford English Dictionary's first citation of nor'easter, dated 1837, comes from a translation of Aristophanes by a young Cambridge University graduate: "Slack your sheet! A strong nor'-easter's groaning." (Plain northeaster is almost 70 years older.)
Nor'east, however, gets a fuller treatment in the 2003 revision of the OED online. Instead of one quotation, labeled obsolete, there are six, dating back four centuries. But they don't do a lot to pinpoint the source of northeaster. Only one, from "Seamans Secrets," is obviously sailing lingo. Two citations are from plays, two from (non-seafaring) fiction, one from a poem.
And several seem to suggest folksiness, dialect, even dimwittedness -- as in John Lyly's 1592 play, where a pupil learning the points of the compass loses it: "North, north-east, North-east, Nore nore and by Nore-east. I shall never do it."
We don't know who it was -- sailor, playwright, or poet -- who first stretched nor'east into nor'easter (or contracted northeaster to nor'easter). But once launched, the new word spread rapidly in Britain and America during the 19th century.
In 1849, the Gettysburg Star and Banner ran a story about a loudmouth named Jake, whose voice was "like a nor'easter in a field of broom corn." Twenty years later, the New York Herald theater reviewer praised a local institution: "Driving snow storm or drizzling December nor'easter, Booth's theatre never fails to draw."
Northeaster remained the dominant spelling, however. And the Globe and the
The Globe and the Times still say no to nor'easter, by stylebook fiat. But most American newspapers, a Nexis search shows, showed little resistance. Thanks to their embrace -- and the vocal support of TV weatherpeople -- the tide has turned: Nor'easter overtook northeaster in 1988, and it's still gaining.
In fact, nor'easter is now so popular that some people think the older word is weird. "Northeaster? Ptui!" wrote Adam Gaffin at the Boston blog Universal Hub in 2005. "It just sounds too much like an Amtrak train ("Now boarding on track 17, the Northeaster)." But "nor'easter is full of wind and fury and old salts in slickers being battered by the spray as they peer out over the ship's wheel with their one good eye." Most readers agreed: In the blog's poll, nor'easter beat northeaster 12 to 1.
Linguist Mark Liberman, writing at Language Log in 2005, said nor'easter "seems "faker to me than the lederhosen at the Biergarten in Walt Disney World." But he conceded that "nor'easter is what storms like this have become, in the English language at large, whether we like it or not."
Like Liberman, I still suspect nor'easter is a literary invention -- and if it does represent a dialect, it's not New England's. But a 400-year-old affectation spread by national television is probably unstoppable. Go ahead, say nor'easter; just don't blame it on the Boston accent.
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THE THINGS WE CARRY: Several readers have e-mailed with an explanation of the confusing sign I mentioned a few weeks ago, the one advising park visitors to "Carry in and carry out all litter."
"A basic rule in the world of backpacking is to leave nothing behind you in the woods," wrote Tom Goodwillie. "This is usually expressed in the snappy expression 'pack it in, pack it out.' " Which, of course, we all easily understand as "(If you) take it in, bring it out."
The genius of the backpackers' version is that it doesn't try to narrow down the "it." My town's sign writers could have done the same, in less terse language: "Carry out what you carry in," for instance. But someone decided to be more specific, and ended up with "carry in litter." Moral: There are worse things in language than a little vagueness.
E-mail Jan Freeman at freeman@globe.com. For past columns, go to boston.com/ideas.
