Word of the day: caitiff
In the current issue of The Atlantic, Christopher Hitchens reviews "Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas" by Perry Anderson, "the West's most influential Marxist". Deft as ever, Hitchens praises Anderson for his style and scolds him for his inconsistencies. Along with the politics, there's the language. Here's Hitchens on Anderson: "Occasionally his prose contains asides of extraordinary loftiness. 'I detest pubs,' Anderson tersely informs us, while on another page he deploys the beautifully feudal and anachronistic term 'caitiff' to describe the lowly officials of the Irish Republic."
Somewhat tartly, Michael Quinion says caitiff "became a staple of those historical writers seeking to gain some antique credibility through choice of language (Sir Walter Scott comes especially to mind)."
