Our deputy features editor has just revealed that he yesterday inserted a clanger into his copy on purpose to see if I would pick it up and blog about it. A cheeky little trick to pull on a press day, I say.
The offending sentence was:
It felt like groundhog day all over againI changed it to
It felt like Groundhog DayAnd went on my merry way.
However, since he revealed his treachery this morning, I have started to ask myself whether I was right to change it. He meant to convey a feeling of something happening all over again, having already been repeated several times before. However... the actual (y'know, actual) Groundhog Day does not carry this meaning.
The OED says:
Groundhog Day:The film of the same name, however, was about a TV weatherman who wakes up to the same day over and over again (can't imagine how that would feel) - and it was clearly to this meaning that my dear colleague was referring.
2 February, when the groundhog is said to come out of its hole at the end of hibernation. If the animal sees its shadow - ie if the weather is sunny - it is said to portend six weeks more of winter weather.
So... was I right to change it? Has the movie meaning superseded the dictionary meaning? Or did I effectively change his comment so that it likened a sustainability forum to a woodchuck coming out of its hole? Hmm...
You did the right thing - I'm fairly sure most people think of the movie when they hear the phrase Groundhog Day. Mind you, there are very few trade magazines that wouldn't benefit from the inclusion of a woodchuck or two. Which reminds me:
ReplyDeleteHow much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Is the meaning defined by the movie or my older associations? That is an interesting question. I think the meaning of a word is defined by what people take it to mean. The dictionary then follows. I might mean something in a manner defined by the dictionary, but if it is a word with a different meaning to The Common Man (Vince), then I will get tittered at. I think that is what philology teaches too, and philology is highly deconstructive of the edifice of grammar etc.
ReplyDeleteBy the by I don't know if you have heard of the discipline of Rhetoric but these days it is only understood by parliamentarians. They used to teach in Italian schools but not more. Anyway at one time it was a hugely disciplined branch of the use of language especially on the Continent but has all but died a death in Britain.
Anyway to end I think you tackled the Hughes Trap perfectly, 'all over again' after Groundhog Day being redundant.
It would have been one of those comments I read without understanding as a) I've never seen the film and b) I had not heard of this animal of strange Springtime habits. Capital letters might have made me think it was some public holiday in a country I have not visited.
ReplyDeleteIt depends on the context. I assume the article did not involve small animals emerging from their lairs, but did involve the feeling of something being continuously repeated, so yes it seems right.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dragonfall5 in that most people would think the reference was to the meaning purveyed in the film and you were quite right to edit in the way you did. By the way, has the phrase 'Groundhog Day' made its way into the OED yet?
ReplyDeleteDragonfall5
ReplyDelete"A woodchuck would chuck what a woodchuck could, if a woodchuck could chuck wood."
In other words: not very much. Paws are too small apparently.
Isn't "Groundhog Day all over again" just a tautology? Along the lines of someone giving you a whistle-pig or a land-beaver as a free gift.
Interesting to know which other phrases from books and films have sparked a dictionary definition though. Catch-22 being the obvious one I guess. And then there's Big Brother and Lolita . . .