Oh, New York Times.... you have made the classic booboo:
The mistake is in the headline and the article:
The path to that tender moment had been torturous. Not long after the princess and Mr. Komuro announced their engagement four years ago, the public began to question her choice.... Princess Mako’s father withheld approval of the marriage, citing the curdled public opinion. The paparazzi chased Mr. Komuro, 30, after he left for New York to attend Fordham Law School and tracked his shaggy hair and food truck habits. Savage attacks on social media left the princess suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.... The media and the public were shocked, simply shocked, by the fact that he arrived from New York sporting a ponytail.... In some surveys, as many as 80 percent of respondents have said they opposed the marriage. Yet after waiting three years for Mr. Komuro to finish law school and start a job at a New York law firm....
Law school is a challenge, but it's not torture. A "torturous path" would involve torture. A "tortuous path" is a long and winding road. I know that any law student — even a ponytailed Fordham student — can crank out a defense of the use of "torturous path" here by stressing that the process was indeed painful for the princess so it's not really a mistake, just hyperbole. But the "tortuous path"/"torturous path" mixup is really well known. It's one of the most discussed word substitution issues, so even if you really wanted to say that the princess's path was torture, you should resist out of realizing that language mavens will say you were wrong.
And by the way, since I'm talking about law students, there's also "tortious." These words — "torturous," "tortuous," and "tortious" — all go back to the idea of twisting. In French, you probably know, "tort" means wrong, but that got started out of the idea of twisting. Think about the idea that wrong is twisted, distorted. Language itself is always twisting — twisting the night away — new meanings twining out of old ones. In the long scheme of things, we've benefited from the twists, the wrongs, but the mavens policing the lines — defending the distinctions — are part of the tortuous path of the language we love.
And best wishes to the happy couple! Let me quote the groom, because this is damned cute: "I love Mako. I would like to spend my one life with the person I love."
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29 comments:
Could be a nasty wedding night with a Mako.
dont both words share origin "tort" = twist
It's tortoises all the way down.
"Tortuous" is one of those awkward words. Whenever I see it, I have to re-read it to make sure I've read the right one. Whenever I want to use it, I have to double-check to make sure I'm spelling it right. And then I start to wonder if maybe I should use something similar instead. It's disheartening that this article was written and edited by professional word-wranglers, who do not share my views of this word. The editor, at least, should have heard faint alarm bells at the sight of this word.
Princess Mako’s father withheld approval of the marriage, citing the curdled public opinion. The paparazzi chased Mr. Komuro, 30, after he left for New York to attend Fordham Law School and tracked his shaggy hair and food truck habits. Savage attacks on social media left the princess suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.... The media and the public were shocked, simply shocked, by the fact that he arrived from New York sporting a ponytail.... Yet after waiting three years for Mr. Komuro to finish law school and start a job at a New York law firm.
Luckily it's Japanese royalty.
Otherwise problems such as these might have been traced by the NYT to white privilege.
I knew that Japan was a constitutional monarchy and had an emperor but this is probably the first story that I can recall in my lifetime about any other member of the Japanese royal family.
Now do Meghan Markle and her whipped little boy husband. She's a good little progressive and she is dragging him down with her. Everyone is laughing at them....except good little progressives like Oprah because they can cry RACISM!!, to divide England just like the Progressives divided America.
The use of the wrong word isn't so much a felony...maybe just a tort?
Could one substitute "painful" in place of "torturous". From the news reports on the poor couple and their 3 year engagement, sounds like one could.
Japanese people tend to be very conservative when it comes to social norms.
A man with a pony tail is not going to fly over there unless you are a Sumo wrestler : )
You won't even be allowed into an Onsen (community hot baths) if you have any visual tattoos. And they will be visible as everyone is naked (separating men/women, of course).
As a Fordham Law graduate who was mentally composing a defense of torturous, I got to "I know that any law student — even a ponytailed Fordham student — can crank out of [sic] a defense," and decided not to bother.
Narayanan said...
"dont both words share origin "tort" = twist"
Read the entire post.
"The use of the wrong word isn't so much a felony...maybe just a tort?"
It's like my commenters today are playing a game of comment that most proves you didn't read to the end of the post.
Sigh.
‘A "torturous path" would involve torture’
Yes, but torture can mean “distortion or overrefinement of a meaning or an argument” as Althouse is doing here. In any event, if you look up the torturous v. tortuous distinction in the linkable Merriam-Webster dictionary, you will see that the NYT is already there.
Savage attacks on social media left the princess suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder..
Couldn't "tortuous" be used here for a long a winding path that leads to a cause of action for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress.
Mako eat dat sigh every time.
'Could be a nasty wedding night with a Mako.'
In a good way?
I have dyelseiax...
“you should resist out of realizing that language mavens will say you were wrong”
So the language maven rule is that paths can only be tortuous and not torturous. Here’s the problem with this old-fashioned rules: since 1920 torturous has been beating tortuous to a pulp.
She wants to marry an American lawyer? Why couldn’t the princess have settled on someone with an honorable profession? Like trash collector?
AA: "It's like my commenters today are playing a game of comment that most proves you didn't read to the end of the post."
Spoken like such a law professor. ;)
I hope they get a happy life. Free from torture. But with plenty of interesting twists.
After my last colonoscopy the doc told me I had a "long, tortuous colon." I asked if he charged by the inch.
In a voracious way, Joe Smith!
'I asked if he charged by the inch.'
I asked my urologist the same thing...
The Queen of England heads "The Firm" which makes her net worth at least $500,000,000 out of family holdings of about $100,000,000,000. Plus she and hers get annual Sovereign Grants from Parliament, a few tens of millions for palace salaries and maintenance. Not too shabby.
The Emperor of Japan, in penury under a 250 year long shogunate, was restored to primary authority in the 1860s, then lost everything in WW II. Then regained a bit under the new constitutional monarchy founded by the new shogun, General MacArthur. And is now doing quite well. Inheritable personal assets of the emperor are about $1.5Billion, annual appropriations for the family upkeep are $200-300Million. Pity the young woman had to forfeit her imperial status to marry.
I read the whole post.
It was torture. So many twists.
I read she also renounced the one time payment she would receive upon leaving the royal family.
Another related word: torculus. It's a neume -- a symbol used in notating Gregorian chant -- that starts on one pitch, dips to a lower one, and then turns round back up. A porrectus does the same thing, but starting from a low pitch, going to a higher one, and then back down.
I used to know all the neumes. Richard Taruskin laid them out for all of us the first day of our Med/Ren music course at Cal. Some of them sound rather naughty. Clivis. Climacus! (That last one is just two or more notes descending from the starting pitch; nothing to get excited about.)
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