LETTER: Origins of ‘woke’ revisited

Last week’s article on the origins of the word "woke" provoked some thought in this wordsmith too ("Wake up and smell the coffee about the origin of ‘woke’", January 19).

The author goes back to a 1962 article referring to a song sung in 1938 by Huddie Leadbetter, or Lead Belly, in particular to the words “stay woke”. The article then references a 1904 quote: “Wake up, wake up”.

I suggest the use of “woke” arose from the common use of it as the past tense of “wake”, what one saw as the common distortion or simplification of English of the less educated. This is confirmed in the 1918 quotation that involved Rip van Winkle, correctly using the word in the past tense.

Later and current commentators put an intellectual twist to the word’s history, perhaps seeking to deflect a view that it arose from basic ignorance of correct English usage.

Similarly, a pet hate of mine is “nice”, now commonly used as a lazy indication of approval and without real meaning otherwise. For example, “This food is nice”. It is tasty. “The weather is nice today”. It is sunny/warm/mild or whatever, but “nice” removes the need for precision by the user.

The original use of the word appertained to good manners, “His manners were nice to a point.” 

Robert Stone
Linden

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