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Article: Can you relate? ; The rise of a Hollywood-ism; plus, going R-free; The Word
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- November 8, 2009
CopyrightCopyright 2009 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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"RELATABLE - WHAT IS that?" demanded the subject line of
Christina Thompson's e-mail. The message itself took a calmer tone.
Thompson, who edits the Harvard Review and teaches writing and
editing, has been hearing the word more and more often, she said, to
describe "something one can relate to, as in `it's a very relatable
book.'
"I'm wondering where this comes from," she wrote. "I'm sure it
was not around when I was young." And though we are all vulnerable
to the Recency Illusion - the impression that a usage is newer than
it really is - in the case of the new relatable, Thompson may be
right.
There was an old relatable, too, dating to the early 19th
century, when it was used to mean ...