Fun with language

Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson novels can be a feast for lovers of language, and The System of the World is no exception. Word origins, for example, are often sprinkled into the narrative.

The story has much to do with English coinage, so readers learn very early that the word coin came from the archaic word coign, meaning corner. Coins apparently were originally square, but assayers removed corners to test the purity of the metal. Similarly characters discuss the origins of such words as club, mob and machinery.

Stephenson often uses 18th century spellings so that club is clubb, mob is mobb and top is topp. The words fantasy and fantasize are always spelled with a ph. Yet he frequently mixes in words and phrases that sound more modern than 1714, when the story is set.

An Internet source says the phrase "queer the deal" dates from 1812, or a century later than the story. I don't know when the phrase "absentee landlord" came into the language, but a book called Absentee Ownership was published in 1923. The phrase cocktail party also appears to have been a 20th century invention.

I have a feeling Stephenson was well aware of such language incongruities and hoped readers would enjoy them as much as he did.