Ludicrous vs Ridiculous

I read a celebrity quotation that asserted that a rumor being circulated about her was “ludicrously silly.” The statement struck me as ridiculous.

Silly is a synonym for ludicrous; using one to intensify the other is overkill.

In recent years, ludicrous has become celebrity-speak for plain old ridiculous. As a result, a subtle difference between the two is being lost.

Rapper Christopher Bridges, known as Ludacris, told an MTV interviewer that he based his stage name on his “split personality,” which he described as being “ridiculous and ludicrous.” Bridges apparently perceives a difference between the words, (what that is, he doesn’t say), but other celebrities seem to have latched onto ludicrous as if it were merely a classier word than the more familiar ridiculous.

For example,

If being an attractive woman got you attention for directing, then the entire ‘best director’ category would be comprised of models. To me, that is just the most ludicrous connection that you could make. –Diablo Cody

Actors will never be replaced. The thought that somehow a computer version of a character is going to be something people prefer to look at is a ludicrous idea. –Peter Jackson

Dictators are ludicrous characters, and, you know, in my career and in my life, I’ve always enjoyed sort of inhabiting these ludicrous, larger-than-life characters that somehow exist in the real world. –Sacha Baron Cohen

The curtains would open and it would be just her standing in some ludicrous pose, like Aphrodite. –Lesley-Anne Down

It seems to me that in each of the above quotations, the speaker was reaching for ridiculous or perhaps a word with some other connotation that would be more appropriate in the context.

Connotation: The signifying in addition; inclusion of something in the meaning of a word besides what it primarily denotes; implication.

Ridiculous seems to me to be less judgmental than ludicrous. Something ridiculous provokes laughter because it is incongruous. For example, a man wearing a lampshade for a hat presents a ridiculous sight.

Something ludicrous is both incongruous and contemptible. For example, a nineteen-year-old with the full use of his legs riding on the shoulders of his bodyguards while touring the Great Wall of China presents a ludicrous sight.

Each of the following synonyms is a word for a dwelling: house, palace, shack,hut, hovel, mansion. They may be synonyms, but each conveys a different feeling to the reader or listener.

English possesses numerous adjectives used to convey the meaning ludicrous, most of which are synonyms, but each of which carries some difference in connotation. Here are some:

absurd
asinine
comical
farcical
foolish
idiotic
laughable
preposterous
risible

In Regards To

A web search for “in regards to” brings up 680 million links, thousands of which lead to articles telling readers that “in regards to” is nonstandard English. Apparently quite a few English speakers have managed to avoid reading any of them.

Nonstandard “in regards to” continues to spread, and not just on blogs and in comments written by the educationally challenged. Here are some examples from sites that aspire to some sort of professional expertise:

Elasticity of Ridership In Regards to Transit Fare and Service Changes –headline over an About.com article

ICA President McLean Changes Tune in Regards to CCE –headline at The Chronicle of Chiropractic

Nitrogen Inversion in regards to Stereochemistry –title of study guide at ucla.edu

McDonalds in regards to globalization and business change –title of an essay offered at a UK site

The phrase “in regard to” means “about, regarding, concerning.” Speakers who put an “s” on regard in “in regard to” and “with regard to” are perhaps confusing these phrases with “as regards”:

As regards your question concerning the membership of the Universal House…

BBC policy as regards interviewers/journalists and their relationship with government officials

In the expressions “in regard to” and “with regard to,” regard is a noun; in the expression “as regards,” regards is a verb.

The noun regard does take the plural in certain other idioms. For example,

Give my regards to your parents.
Best regards, Sam

Speakers who find it difficult to remember to omit the “s” can avoid nonstandard “in regards to” and “with regards to” by using regarding in their place.

Related post: In Regard to Your Letter…

Comes to Bear

A question on an ESL forum alerted me to the expression “to come to bear.”

What is the meaning of “comes to bear” in this context:

Speaker One: I want to tell you about summer camp. It was a wonderful childhood experience.
Speaker Two: We can get to it later.
Speaker One: We can get to it now. You see, it all comes to bear.

Various possibilities were offered by other members of the forum:

It probably means “it has a bearing on (something).”

“Bear” in this sense means “produce”. A tree can bear fruit, or a woman can bear children.

“It all comes to bear” means “it all comes to fruition.”

Searching the web, I found numerous examples of “come to bear,” mostly in headlines. but sometimes in connected text.

Will FedEx pressure come to bear?

Political pressure will come to bear on US margin rules

The roles of first lady come to bear

Polar policies come to bear

On a site dedicated to the writing of business letters, I found this definition of the phrase:

Come to Bear: If something comes to bear on you, you start to feel the pressure or effect of it.

Although this definition does not explain the use of “it all comes to bear” in the quotation that started this inquiry, it does shed some light on the other uses. “Come to bear” seems to be derived from the idiom “bring to bear,” meaning “to apply (pressure) or exert (influence).”

Pressure is brought to bear. Influence and arguments are brought to bear. Then, once such things are brought to bear, the objects of the pressure, influence or arguments feel the effects. They are affected.

It seems to me that the expression “comes to bear” is a messy, obfuscating circumlocution for “affects” or some other verb.

Like passive voice, the “comes to bear” expression conceals part of the message to be conveyed. Compare:

Will FedEx pressure come to bear?
Will FedEx pressure affect the golf playoffs?

Political pressure will come to bear on US margin rules
Political pressure will affect/alter existing US margin rules

The roles of first lady come to bear
The role of First Lady affects the woman in it

“Comes to bear” is an expression that careful writers can do without.

Sands and Hands of Time

Sometimes eggcorns catch on.

An eggcorn is the reshaping of a common word or expression that makes sense in a certain way. The term comes from misspellingeggcorn for acorn. As explained by Chris Waigl, “the substitution [of eggcorn for acorn] involved more than just ignorance: an acorn is more or less shaped like an egg; and it is a seed, just like grains of corn. So if you don’t know how acorn is spelled, egg corn actually makes sense.”

The often-heard expression “hands of time” may have begun as an eggcorn, but has caught on in general speech.

Long after hourglasses were replaced by clocks, the image of sand falling to the bottom half of an hourglass remained strong as an image of time passing. People talked and wrote about “the sands of time.”

Longfellow (1807-1882) uses the image in “A Psalm of Life”:

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time

NBC still uses it on the longest running soap opera on television:

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Nowadays, people writing songs and selling beauty products want to “turn back” the “hands of time.”

Turn back the hands of time with these 5 beauty products
Skin Care Products for Women – Turning Back the Hands of Time

If I could turn, turn back the hands of time/Then my darlin’ you’d still be mine

“Hands of time” may have begun with someone who didn’t know about hourglasses but was familiar with the hands on an analog clock and the necessity of turning them back in regions that observe Daylight Savings Time.

I wonder what the new image will be when the image of a clockface is forgotten, and time is perceived as passing digitally. The bands of time?