Skip to main content

meaning in context - In what occasion could the word “precious” be taken disapprovingly, or sarcastically?


I understand that the word “precious” in the following quote of Maureen Dowd’s article “Heart of Darkness” (NYT, March 20) literally means “2. valuable or important and not to be wasted” as defined in OALD:



Congressman Jones read an e-mail from a former boss of General Allen’s, giving the congressman this unvarnished assessment: “Attempting to find a true military and political answer to the problems in Afghanistan would take decades. Would drain our nation of precious resources, with the most precious being our sons and daughters. Simply put, the United States cannot solve the Afghan problem, no matter how brave and determined our troops are.



But I didn’t know “precious” has another meaning as defined in OALD: 5. (disapproving, people and their behavior) very formal, exaggerated and not natural, and Readers English Dictionary: 2.(colloquial) terrible, almost worthless, until I was told by my respected forum mate a few days ago.


Being encouraged by his suggestion for me to “ask another question if I’m not sure of what he means by describing his input as “precious” is actually rather “precious” phrasing, I would like to ask:




  1. What is an example of “precious” being used as “disapproving” or sarcastic way (as neither OALD nor CALD provides examples)?




  2. Is there an easy way to discern the instance “precious” being used as “disapproving” from the case being used in the sense of genuine “great value” as used in the above quote other than judging from the context?





Answer



Precious is used disapprovingly when someone is behaving in a way others perceive to be over-sensitive. In other words, they are behaving as if they are precious.


For example:



Dave: "I can't possibly get in your car, it smells faintly of dog"
Susan: "Oh stop being so precious and get in"



Another example of using precious disapprovingly is in the phrase precious language (as explained by TimLymington and FumbleFingers in the comments). This is attributed to language that is used in a way that is overtly laboured over, which would imply that the speaker/writer thinks a lot of themselves, and is trying to show off in some way. For example:



The warp and weft of our frail and meagre existence is inauspiciously blanketed with disheartening, disquieting, disingenuous and discourteous vociferations that we must yield our material being to the dogmatic and obtusely inconsequential media



An example of using precious sarcastically is when a child is behaving precociously:



Child doing something precocious


Parent: "Oh isn't Tristan precious!" (not sarcastic, genuine praise for their child)


Onlooker who finds the scene sickening: "Oh yeah. Really precious." (said in a sarcastic tone, probably out of earshot of the parent)



It would be difficult to discern a sarcastic use of precious without hearing the tone of voice, or knowing the person saying it.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more