Yet again, an English word surprises me with its multiple meanings. A reader complimented the “scruples” I apply to writing. I thought I knew the meaning of that word but wanted to check. Dr. Johnson doesn’t include scruples in his Dictionary but for scrupulous he gives: “nicely doubtful; hard to satisfy in determinations of conscience.” For the singular form, scruple, the OED gives ten definitions, starting with:
“A thought or circumstance
that troubles the mind or conscience; a doubt, uncertainty or hesitation in
regard to right and wrong, duty, propriety, etc.; esp. one which is regarded as
over-refined or over-nice, or which causes a person to hesitate where others
would be bolder to act.”
Given that definition, I’ll
accept the compliment. I look upon every word as a conscious choice. When I’m
writing, especially simple subject-verb-object sentences, most words come automatically,
at least through the first draft. I review what arrived without effort, read
it aloud and decide what stays and what goes. It’s
remarkable the gibberish you can produce on first pass. Here’s another
related OED definition of scruple: “a
doubt or uncertainty as to a matter of fact or allegation; an intellectual
difficulty, perplexity, or objection.” This post started with a scruple
about scruples.
Subsequent definitions in
the OED: “disbelief or doubt” (thus, Shakespeare: “Whereat I, wretch, / Made
scruple of his praise . . .”), “suspicion,” “a quibble, fine distinction,” “disbelief
or doubt.” Scruple is even a verb: “to doubt, question, hesitate to
believe.” It comes from Latin by way of French: “diminutive of
scrūpus rough or hard pebble, used figuratively by Cicero for a cause of
uneasiness or anxiety.”
Writing, even something
simple as a blog post, involves a thousand minute decisions about sound and
sense, and taking many pains. Judging from “Scruples” (The Calligraphy Shop,
2003), Ben Downing understands:
“Chipped off the Latin for
‘small sharp stone,’ they
are
those irritants that get
into our shoes and sting
our feet until we stop,
stoop, and dump them out.”
Unwanted words are irritants, those “small sharp stones” in our shoes.
3 comments:
Regarding language more generally, I wonder if there is such a thing as a person who has read H. L. Mencken's "The American Language" - the original volume and both of the supplemental volumes - all the way through. I know I don't qualify!
A scruple is also a measurement, defined by Wikipedia as "...8⁄175 of an ounce (or 1⁄24 of a troy ounce), 1⁄3 dram, or 20 grains: Exactly 1.2959782 grams." It's also the amount of a powder that can be grasped between the thumb and forefinger.
I often think about a similar word, “discrimination,” which once occupied a valuable niche in our language and was of course complimentary. We no longer have a word for the precise concept — maybe “discernment,” but not quite.
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