adjective
adjective: Lilliputian
1. trivial or very small.
noun
noun: Lilliputian; plural noun: Lilliputians
1. a trivial or very small person or thing.
This is not surprising as they are in fact a very tiny people. What caught me off guard was its "Mentions". After the publication of Gulliver's Travels it seems to have been a very popular word, but use waned quickly around 1960. The Sixties, or the "Cultural Decade" according to Wikipedia, was a time of great change in the United States. Everything from civil-rights to women's rights even to early gay rights pioneers were in question. It would not be surprising if it had fallen out of use as the times changed.
Just out of curiosity, why would events that took place in a certain time period disregard a word that has a definition that can be relevant to almost anything? In other words, why didn't a word like "gigantic" not lose its value during the 60s if "lilliputian" did?
ReplyDeletePerhaps the book could not be printed as easily as before? The years 1724-1729 saw peak usage of the word "Lilliputian" at around 0.000095% before a massive decrease in the year 1731, decreasing 19-fold to 0.000005%. However, 1731 did not see any notable works in particular published; other than the death of Daniel Defoe (author of Robinson Crusoe), nothing of particular occurred that year.
Delete1960 did not see the usage of the word decrease in particular with a usage rate of about 0.000013%. The current rate of usage for this word is about 0.00001% percent.
While I certainly don't believe that the word "Lilliputian" will fall out of the English language in usage any time soon, I think the actual undercurrent reason for decrease in usage is related to both the English language itself and the American education system.
Naturally, words fall out of use due to easier and shorter ways of communicating the same data. For this reason, longer and more cumbersome words such as "miniscule," "infinitesimal," and "microscopic" have their usage percentages at a free-fall. Words easier to say which don't require a comprehensive vocabulary and, more recently, are easier to text have had their usage percentages go up in recent years, such as "little" and "mini."
American curriculums are also to lie at fault here - many school districts are not enforcing the reading of classics such as Gulliver's Travels which have captured critical events in history in comical satire and thus produced novel words such as "Lilliputian." Many writers are more concerned thinking about the future now, notably societies of the utopian/dystopian nature. However, this aligns perfectly with history; while Enlightenment values began to flourish at the time of the writing of Gulliver's Travels (the comparison between Enlightenment ideals and early 17th-century politics is rather obvious), utopian and dystopian novels are flourishing in an age of revolution - Arab Spring, Ukraine, etc.
Maybe what was disappearing was the use of derogatory words towards minorities? Seems like small people are more of a minority than larger? Not quite sure to tell you the truth.
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