Tuesday, January 30, 2007

That Tribal Name Again

I had thought the term chattering classes was older. A Dorothy Parker term or something of that era. According to the revised OED entry, however, it dates from 1980.

Most definitions I can dredge up consider the word to be weighted heavily to journalists and other media figures. I don't object to that particularly, but the OED examples from the link above suggest something much more like my Arts & Humanities Tribe/Humanist Class. Maybe this group has had a better name all along.

Fun link, BTW. Don't pass it up.

2 comments:

Teri said...

Maybe it's patterned after "nattering nabobs of negativity"!

Anonymous said...

I remember having attended a class in chattering when I was in high school in 1967.