Since 1992
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By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Foible
A foible is a minor flaw, weakness or eccentricity of character. The word comes from the sport of fencing, where the foible is the top third of the sword blade which is weaker in terms of leverage. It contrasts with the forte, the section of the sword from the handle to its middle that is considered stronger. Forte is also a term used to describe someone’s strength or something at which they excel. Both English words are from French words based on Latin. The word “fencing” is taken from the Latin word that meant to “ward off, protect or defend,” which also gives us the words defense and fence, in the sense of a barrier for protection.
French is largely the vocabulary of traditional fencing because it was the French Fencing Academy in the 16th century that began to develop the vocabulary for the various fencing terms used today. At one time, learning how to use a sword was an essential part of a man’s classical education. When dueling was mostly outlawed during the 19th century, fencing schools began to teach fencing as a sport.
The familiar quote, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” was written during the first half of the 19th century by author Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, first baron of Lytton. Bulwer-Lytton is infamous as a writer because of his long-winded pompous sentences. “It was a dark and stormy night…” is the often-cited opening line in his 1830 novel “Paul Clifford.” It has become such a literary cliché for bad first sentences that an annual literary competition to write the worst opening sentence is named the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. It is possibly unfair to the writer, as Bulwer-Lytton’s writings were typical of the florid Victorian prose popular at the time. Why not forgive Bulwer Lytton his foibles and give him credit for writing “The pen is mightier than the sword”? It’s a reminder that words can have sharp edges and it doesn’t take much to turn a word into a sword.
