February 24, 2018

The "flaunt"/"vaunt" distinction.

As footnoted in the previous post, I just use the word "vaunt" for the first time in the 50,000+-post history of this blog. I almost wrote "flaunt," but I stopped and wondered, why isn't it "vaunt"? I've used the word "flaunt" many times — including making fun of mixing it up with "flout" — but maybe "flaunt" has, in my mind, eclipsed the similar word "vaunt."

Don't get too cocky about knowing the "flaunt"/"flout" distinction if you are not even keeping track of the "flaunt"/"vaunt" distinction.

Here's "Flaunt, Flout, Vaunt" (in the AMA Style Insider):
[T]he confusion between flaunt and vaunt stems not only from their marked similarity in sound but also from their somewhat similar meanings (to display oneself boastfully or ostentatiously, often so as to show off one’s attractiveness or possessions, compared with using language boastfully, often to boast of an accomplishment). Indeed, given the similarities in sound and meaning that exist between these two words, it is perhaps surprising that they are not confused more often. On the whole, however, language users usually seem to recognize the difference between these words, and even descriptive usage does not yet support the use of vaunt in place of flaunt or vice versa.

In short, flaunt, flout, and vaunt are sometimes used as malapropisms for one another, particularly in spoken language. However, these terms have distinct meanings and, despite their similarity in sound as well as the increasing support in some circles for sometimes using flaunt in place of flout, currently it is preferable to maintain the distinctions between these terms and to use them as they have predominantly been used over time. Or, to take some liberties with the quasi-transitive:
If you’ve got it, flaunt it;

If you did it, vaunt it;

If they forbid it, flout it.—Phil Sefton, ELS
A better poem:
When I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and check'd even by the selfsame sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
ADDED: I just spent a little time trying to understand that "better poem," which is Shakespeare's Sonnet 15, and I quickly ended up doing a Google search which brought me to "You’re Missing Shakespeare’s Best, Most Sophisticated Boner Jokes" by Nathalie Lagerfeld. The title is so English teacher. Unfortunately, it says nothing about Sonnet 15, and I'm left with stupid suspicions engrafted in me by English teachers of yore. Cliff's Notes says Sonnet 15 just means the youth — the entire man (not merely one part) — is youthful, and knowing he'll get old makes him seem even better in his currently youthful state.

44 comments:

tcrosse said...

If you're a flautist, flout it.

the 4chan Guy who reads Althouse said...

Vaunting? Flaunting?

Daunting.

The Germans have a word for this.

rhhardin said...

Respect for the flaunt.

rhhardin said...

Nature abhors a vaunt.

rhhardin said...

Town income could be increased by installing green light cameras.

It's all in the sell.

buwaya said...

Anonymous commenters are free to flaunt, constrained to vaunt, and its very tough to flout. On Althouse anyway.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

“The phrase bon viveur is a pseudo-French phrase adopted in English in the mid 19th century, modelled on the French bon vivant "one who lives well", i.e. referring to a person who enjoys the good things of life.
Bon viveur - Wikipedia

Ann Althouse said...

"Daunting."

Princess Diana was mocked for using that word in her 1995 interview."

"I wasn't daunted, and am not daunted by the responsibilities that [the role of Queen] creates. It was a challenge, it is a challenge…. The most daunting aspect [of marrying Charles] was the media attention, because my husband and I, we were told when we got engaged that the media would go quietly, and it didn't…. Yes, I was very daunted because as far as I was concerned I was a fat, chubby, 20-year-old, 21-year-old, and I couldn't understand the level of interest…. Well maybe I was the first person ever to be in this family who ever had a depression or was ever openly tearful. And obviously that was daunting, because if you've never seen it before how do you support it?… I still to this day find the interest daunting and phenomenal, because I actually don't like being the centre of attention."

The media were sarcastic: Oh, she learned a new word!!

Meade said...

"If you're a flautist, flout it."

But if you're a bubbly fan, flute it.

Wince said...

Heretofore I distinguished flaunt as a self display, and vaunt as praise by a third party.

But indeed it does look like you can go vaunt yourself without flouting proper usage.

rhhardin said...

The British started using brave ship names like HMS Dauntless, putting them ahead of other navies using e.g. LXIV Trepid.

Narayanan said...

Tenet vs tenant?
Principle vs principal?

Helenhightops said...

My son came home from seventh grade and told me his history teacher told him, “People born during The Depression don’t flaunder their money”.

tim in vermont said...

I’m with EDH, but I bow to the Althouse this once.

and its very tough to flout. On Althouse anyway.

It’s been done.

tim in vermont said...

My personal favorite is blandish vs brandish. They are both about persuasion.

DB said...

Strategic use of the Ashley Madison ad next to sonnet 15!

Paco Wové said...

What evidence is there that the sonnet's subject was a young man? It sounds like it was written to and about a woman, no longer so young.

tim in vermont said...

Next you are going to tell me that Oscar Wilde was gay!

Ann Althouse said...

"Strategic use of the Ashley Madison ad next to sonnet 15!"

I'm still getting the Chloe handbag.

Yancey Ward said...

You flaunt a personal characteristic or token of achievement. You can vaunt them, too, but vaunting is reserved for those items of party other than yourself. That is the distinction I have always had between the two words.

Yancey Ward said...

Of course, when you think about it- you use flaunt when pointing out the narcissism of others, and vaunt when you don't. One is derogatory towards braggarts.

Bob Boyd said...

Flaunted flouting vaunted.

Bob Boyd said...

I saw it in the vaunt ads.

virgil xenophon said...

"VAUNTED" is but another term for "widely and highly regarded/touted, as in: The highly vaunted USAF A-10 "Warthog" is the worlds best ground attack fighter.

Howard said...

Chloe sounds like an antibiotic-resistant STD. Isn't that what gave Michael Douglas throat cancer?

Ralph L said...

"I've never heard vaunt when it wasn't vaunted." --Greta Garbo.

Founder and flounder are misused more often.

Paco Wové said...

"Flouting the rules, he flaunted his vaunted independence"

Paco Wové said...

I.e., what B. Boyd said.

Ron said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeBfVrJ2UiY

Bob Boyd said...

"Isn't that what gave Michael Douglas throat cancer?"

If you eat too much of anything...

Ann Althouse said...

I think flaunt is more of a visual image of waving around something that you have.

Vaunt is verbal and it's bragging, so it can be about something that happened, something that was done, which isn't something that you have — metaphorically — in your hand to wave around. You're talking about something, not showing it off right now. You may be showing yourself off, but you're not flaunting the deed that was done. You're vaunting it.

Ralph L said...

Flout convention and flaunt your much-vaunted Chloe clutch bag.

roesch/voltaire said...

WS seems to imply that you should vaunt your stuff while you have it for only my poetry will flaunt it long after your sap runs down.

traditionalguy said...

An aerospace engineer named Chance Vought designed the F4U for the US Navy who actually flew the monsters off carrier decks. Chance vaunted the Corsair as the best fighter plane ever built. And he was right. The P-51 was better known because it was used in Europe too. But the Corsair is flaunted as the best.

wildswan said...

"Up on Housing Project Hill, it's either fortune or fame
You must pick one or the other, though neither of them are to be what they claim
If you're lookin' to get silly, you better go back to from where you came
Because the cops don't need you, and man, they expect the same"

neither of them are to be what they claim - neither of them are what they vaunt?
If you're lookin' to get silly, - if you're looking to flaunt in a dangerous place
Because the cops don't need you, and man, they expect the same - because the cops will flout your calls for help to get out of problems caused by flaunting

Is Just Like Tom's Thumb's Blues a study in vaunting, flaunting and flouting in the inner city? ending by daunting?

I started out on burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they'd stand behind me when the game got rough
But the joke was on me, there was nobody even there to bluff
I'm going back to New York City, I do believe I've had enough



But in Sonnet 15 the poet in undaunted because just as you can take a green shoot from a dying apple tree and graft it onto another kind of healthy tree, a crab tree, and keep doing that so that the apple tree is immortal so the poet can take the youthful beauty before him (a passing state of a man who changes always toward age and death) and graft it into poetry (which is different because not real but whose beauty is immortal.)

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

"In short, flaunt, flout, and vaunt are sometimes used as malapropisms for one another, particularly in spoken language."

Good to know. It is often difficult to think of a real good malapropism when writing. Using adjectives as adverbs is easier.

Ann Althouse said...

“WS seems to imply that you should vaunt your stuff while you have it for only my poetry will flaunt it long after your sap runs down.”

Did you intentionally reverse the words ... because Shakespeare did.

Should be

WS seems to imply that you should flaunt your stuff while you have it for only my poetry will vaunt it long after your sap runs down.

Ralph L said...

That how you gather those rosebuds.

It's February, but my camellia is budding.

Earnest Prole said...

“Ah yes, the vaunted Mac operating system.”

I thought those words every time I performed the highly intuitive act of dragging the icon of an external hard drive loaded with my precious data across the desktop and into the trash can.

Karen said...

So sad that Cliff notes misses the depth of wisdom and culture embedded in Sonnet 15. Jordan Peterson would say that’s evidence of the crumbling of the humanities.

Ralph L said...

Shakespeare-online.com's paraphrase gets it all mixed up:

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease becomes

And that they flaunt their youthful vitality, and after reaching their prime begin to decline

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Left Bank of the Charles said...

I recall Althouse vaunting her flaunting of a rule she may have actually been flouting.

MacSarcule said...

Greta Garbo: "I vaunt to be alone... "