Someone pointed out the obvious, that the "-core" suffix comes from "hardcore," but how did "-core" get into "hardcore" in the first place? "Hardcore" does not appear in the (unlinkable) Oxford English Dictionary, and "hard core" is only a "draft addition":
hard core adj. and n. (usu. as one word) orig. U.S., (a) adj. denoting harsh, aggressive, or extreme versions of various types of popular music (originally punk, now also rap, techno, etc.), typically faster, louder, or more experimental than related forms, and determinedly less mainstream; (b) n. any of various forms of popular music (often a variety of an established genre) regarded as particularly extreme, aggressive, or experimental.But we use "hardcore" far beyond that music meaning, most notably for porn, but it's widely used, certainly by me. Some examples from the 10 years of this blog:
If you're hardcore enough to burn [artwork worth millions], why are you not hardcore enough to lie to the police?...There's also "softcore," a word I'm using for the first time on this blog right now, oddly enough. "Softcore," a less useful word that "hardcore," is reserved as a contrast to "hardcore." It's a back-formation, like "underwhelm," not a real word in itself. And I say that acknowledging the contestable reality of hardcore as a word in itself.
Ironically, this professor is teaching that it's all about power and you need to use hardcore tactics to win, and the student seems to have learned this lesson well. The edited video, dumped on the internet is a hardcore tactic, flipping the power on the old white guy....
I'm not purporting to interpret this scripture and won't argue about how it should really be read, but I think there is a scruple about calling attention to charity that some people might be hardcore about. Posting even anonymously on a website that is only about advertising charity could be taken as wrong. I note Jesus sounds rather hardcore about it and puts the stakes very high....
One of the reasons "We Won't Get Fooled Again" is a great song is because of the complicated ambivalence expressed by the character who sings it. A hardcore politico cannot use those words, even though a hardcore politico is likely to hear that song and mistakenly believe it expresses what he believes....
An innovative idea for a new law school would to use an old style hardcore Socratic Method approach. It's actually hard to find Kingsfield-type lawprofs any more; everybody's already competing to be the most nurturing. I'd like to see a school compete for students and faculty by offering a retro hardcore method....
If one of the hardcore righties had won the Republican nomination, I would probably have gone for Obama. But Mitt Romney got the nomination, which is what I had been hoping for (after Mitch Daniels decided not to run)....
What's toxic about debate, disagreement, and hardcore argument? When was feminism ever supposed to be about being nice to anybody?...
Would East and West Pakistan be one country today if the government hadn't been so hardcore about Urdu?...
If you were a fan of "Fraggle Rock," you may remember that the Fraggles called Doc's workroom "outer space," and if you're an incredibly hardcore fan of the Althouse blog, you may remember that that there is a room in my house that we call "outer space." We've been calling it that since the '80s....
Tom Ford is more hardcore about men in shorts than I am....
You may imagine that Madison is a place where government nannies coddle the populace, but when it comes to facing winter, we are hardcore northerners. No whining. Be tough. Deal with it. We don't submit to Nature. We're having a Snow Action Day....
It's all about the clavicle, the clavicle that you've etched out through hardcore exercise and stringent dieting....
I wouldn't want all nine [Supreme Court Justices] to be flexible pragmatists. Having a hardcore originalist or two in the mix is a moderating safeguard. But don't give me five of them!...
I came away surprised that some people, especially the libertarians, were hardcore, true believers, wedded to an abstract version of an idea and unwilling to look at how it played out in the real world.
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"Hardcore" comes from the military. The most dedicated, skilled, effective part of a military force was the hard core (or corps) of the army. Napoleon's Invincibles were the hard core of the Grand Armee; the rest were militia, draftees, mercenaries, etc. Why the Oxford doesn't know this I can't imagine, unless I just made it up.
It is also used as a pun in the Marine Corps, as in "the old Corps was hard corps."
It is, I suspect, my age that surprised me with your use of "An innovative idea for a new law school would to use an old style hardcore Socratic Method approach."
When I graduated from an Ivy League Law School in the very early 1970's, the "Socratic Method" was in use in virtually all of our classes.
How it was used obviously depended on each professor, but overall I found it to be fairly useless for first year law students at least.
Yes, you did learn to argue, to "pursue" and to NEVER give in even when you were manifestly wrong.
Since I started my first class a mere 8 days out of Vietnam, I did not respond well to professors who's main job seemed to be to humiliate and intellectually undress students; indeed my reaction to it nearly got me kicked out of school.
The Dean - yes two classes and I was up before the Dean - said that "Everyone uses the Socratic Method. It toughens you up and prepares you for appellate court arguments." When I inquired about those of us who had no desire or intent to appear in court, much less Appellate Court, the Dean sort of rambled around in his argument.
While you didn't say so, I inferred that the days of the Socratic Method were long gone, and not missed at all.
I do hope I was correct in that.
According to secondary sources, the complete OED dates "hardcore" to the 1850's and relates to road building rock mixed with soft tar binder.
But I don't have access to the full OED, so this is based on what others have said they found in the complete OED.
How Germanic. It's a language composed of compound made up words.
Dadcore = hardcore
Mom core = softcore
Sniffcore. Big in Tokyo.
It is a lack of imagination (or perhaps lack of exposure) for the OED to limit "hard core" to music.
"Hardcore" refers to the inner strength of a thing. Trees, for example, have a hard core of stronger wood surrounded by softer material. Thus, a hardcore soldier or marine is thought of as having been reduced to the central values and practices of the military, with all the outer softness removed.
By extension, anything reduced to its inner, basic characteristics is hardcore. E.g., music, Constitutionalism, religion, teaching, etc.
"Hardcore!" - a routine and oft-repeated part of many cadence calls in U.S. Army basic training in the summer of 1969. Frequently found in juxtaposition with "Airborne!" and "Ranger!"
""Hardcore" comes from the military. The most dedicated, skilled, effective part of a military force was the hard core (or corps) of the army."
So the spelling "core" — with its suggestion of the center or the heart of something — is just a simplification of "corps" — meaning body?
"So the spelling 'core' — with its suggestion of the center or the heart of something — is just a simplification of 'corps' — meaning body?"
Unlikely, since the same term has been applied to sailors, airmen, and soldiers. As Pettifogger said, the reference to "hard corps" was a pun coming after the first use of "hardcore."
The Marines are especially hardcore about adopting anything that contributes to their concept of the corps. It's why they generally have high esprit de corps.
TJ Sawyer - as in "I want to be an Airborne Ranger, live a life of death and danger" ?
I chanted that cadence call in 1968 until I was sufficiently awake to realize what I was saying!
I DIDN'T want to live a life of death and danger!
Of course you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need!
:)
Vietnam War books don't get much better (or self-serving - I've always thought he was campaigning for a Medal of Honor) than Col. Hackworth's.
Note the subtitle:
Steel My Soldiers' Hearts: The Hopeless to Hardcore Transformation of 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, United States Army, Vietnam
@ realwest. Well put! I suppose we will have to remind these kids at some point, too, that the military wasn't always volunteer!
"I came away surprised that some people, especially the libertarians, were hardcore, true believers, wedded to an abstract version of an idea and unwilling to look at how it played out in the real world."
I like how the Libers keep almost-demanding I join them, before I turn them down and they go back to dissing me - like I'd forgot they stand against black's ambitions, or that they just admitted there was something attractive about me they want in their group. Their obvious hypocrisy - and need for black voters - just don't impress at all.
Plus, any group supporting an idea but "unwilling to look at how it played out in the real world" has zero chance, with me, since that's where I live:
Not in their well-financed comfort zone where they can think things without it affecting them.
They're openly happy I'm in the street because I don't agree with them - how can I join such slime? I talk of building a nation, they laugh because our citizens are hurting - huh?
As a matter of fact, that's still one of the most awful things I can remember Glenn Reynolds bragging about:
Being able to proffer ideas, for money, without caring if he's right - or if any of them are even sane.
That makes him (and other Libers) a particularly offensive citizen-sucking creep in my book,...
So the spelling "core" — with its suggestion of the center or the heart of something — is just a simplification of "corps" — meaning body?
Now I see how "hard corpse" fits the porn metaphor.
"As a matter of fact, that's still one of the most awful things I can remember Glenn Reynolds bragging about:
Being able to proffer ideas, for money, without caring if he's right - or if any of them are even sane."
I suspect if Reynolds was asked, he might mention something about speaking tongue-in-cheek.
You're a bit too hardcore, Emcee.
My last name is Core. My nickname at one of my workplaces, twenty years ago, somehow became Hardcore. Growing up, it was more likely to have been Apple Core.
"I like how the Libers keep almost-demanding I join them"
Crack is a free agent
TJ Sawyer, you beat me to the Hackworth reference.
CR
Crack: ""I like how the Libers keep almost-demanding I join them."
LOL
Crack is in extremely high demand everywhere!
At least, according to Crack.
And, apparently, only according to Crack.
How about the hard core of a tree? The outer layers are living sapwood, while the core is much harder and stronger.
Seeing Red said...
Mom core = softcore
Apparently you've been watching different videos than I have.
Tits.
I suspect the rabbit hole goes deeper. In metallurgy an analysis of a Japanese katana blade, a metallurgical wonder of the world, speaks of differing hardnesses, carbon percentages, etc, of different sections of the blade, including the edge, the sides, and of course the core. Even an apple core is harder than the rest of the app. Professor, could you be overthinking this?
Crack wrote:
I like how the Libers keep almost-demanding I join them, before I turn them down and they go back to dissing me - like I'd forgot they stand against black's ambitions, or that they just admitted there was something attractive about me they want in their group. Their obvious hypocrisy - and need for black voters - just don't impress at all.
I'm not exactly a libertarian. But I'll defend them on this charge. Libertarians are indivualists, and so don't have a problem with your race, but neither do they think it makes you special. Its a neutral factor. And so they may want you in their group because they value you as an individual and not so much as a black guy. You say they are trying to keep blacks down, they would say that black people can do for themselves and don't need govt to do everything for them.
"Sisters are doing it for themselves" . "I don't want nobody to give me nothing. Open up the door, I'll get it myself. Do you hear me?"
Maybe they are buying the lyrics because they suggest that blacks aren't infants.
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