XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.english.usage   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   On Thu, 28 Aug 2025 08:23:11 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver"   
    wrote:   
      
   >On 2025/8/28 7:8:3, Steve Hayes wrote:   
   >I thought this could be of interest to lexicography, so I copied several   
   >bits of the recent discussion to a lexicographer I know. Here's his   
   >reply (between === lines). I told him I thought he might find it   
   >interesting.   
   >========================================================================   
   >Yes, interesting. Depressing, though, that nobody bothered to look up   
   >the entries for either interest v. or interesting adj. in OED Online:   
   >using just OED2 guarantees that you're not looking at anything the   
   >lexicographers have done since 1989, and in fact for most of the   
   >established words in the language you're mostly looking at what the   
   >lexicographers thought at least 97 years ago - mostly considerably   
   >longer. Not that there's a huge amount that's new in the revised   
   >entries. The use of interesting to refer to someone whose condition   
   >might be 'interesting' in a way that people didn't want to refer to   
   >directly is there, in the specific sense of 'pregnant' (which was added   
   >to the OED in the 1933 Supplement). I suppose it's possible that people   
   >sometimes chose the word for similarly euphemistic reasons that weren't   
   >to do with pregnancy: e.g. some of the references to 'interesting   
   >children' that your correspondent mentions may indeed have been   
   >referring to disability. But it doesn't look as though this usage ever   
   >became strongly established - certainly not as strongly established as   
   >the 'pregnant' sense. And I'd read that book title as using the word in   
   >a different way: being determinedly positive, making the assertion that   
   >if a child has special needs that can be seen as making them   
   >interesting. Not the same as euphemism.   
   >   
   >(I didn't know the abbreviation FLK - and neither does the OED - but a   
   >quick search showed me it's medical slang for 'Funny Looking Kid'. Note   
   >made.)   
   >========================================================================   
      
   None of which actually anwered my question about what 19th century   
   journalists meant by "interesting child", "interesting children", or   
   in the case from 1825 I cited, "interesting creature". Does your   
   lexicographer know, or even know someone who knows?   
      
   Does anyone here have access to the online Oxford dictionary, and if   
   so, does it say anything about this usage. In the contexts in which   
   Ive seen it used, it certainly would not mean pregnant. It is used in   
   contexts where a phrase such as "attractive child" or "accomplished   
   child" would not seem to be out of place, but I doubt that it is a   
   synonym for either of those.   
      
   I suspect that a Victorian journalist might have described Hind Rajab   
   as "an interesting child" -- see here if you don't know who she was:   
      
      
      
   >What he's referring to as online: in most cases, if you have a library   
   >card, you have access to the OED online - and you don't have to go to   
   >your library to access it - you can do so from home; just approach it   
   >via your local (probably meaning your county, rather than town/village)   
   >library website, rather than going direct to the OED.   
      
   I doubt that my local municipal library has such access, though I   
   might ask next time I go.   
      
   >Anyway, thought I'd pass on his reply!   
      
   Thanks very much for that.   
      
      
      
   --   
   Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa   
   Web:  http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm   
   Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com   
   E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk   
      
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