[Andrew Frisardi]

In addition to the word Gregory mentions, lasso is also used for "alas" in Italian. Etymologically, there’s a slightly different sense between aimè and lasso. The former comes from a combination of ai, an onomatopoeic expression of pain, and me, the pronoun “me.” Lasso comes from Latin lassus, “tired,” so there’s a sense of extended suffering and weariness from it.

I find in Webster’s that our alas has the same root: ah for the spontaneous sigh, las for weary.

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

Andrew, what Italian expressions raise the question? Could we investigate how (for example) John Ciardi handled them? He was big on using contemporary English in his translations of Dante.

That's a good question. I wonder what Ciardi does use.

The line I was thinking about for this--although it’s not the only one--is “Quantunque volte, lasso! mi rimembra,” which translates literally as “Whenever, alas! I remember.”

I think this thread is convincing me to go ahead and use alas, although I’d do it without the exclamation point, putting a comma there instead.

[Susan McLean]

It seems I exaggerated when I said I never use "alas" in my translations. Looking back over some that I did years back, I discovered that I used the word in a number of places. Even then I did try to avoid it, but I used it on a case-by-case basis, if I felt it was needed. I still may reconsider on some of them when I collect them into a book. Another word that has given me fits is "vae," meaning "woe," as in "woe is me" or "woe to you."

Susan

[Andrew Frisardi]

[Mistakes about usage of "lasso" and "aimè" deleted here.]

Looking for the Ciardi, I found he does translate "lasso" as "alas," as in this from Inferno V.109-11:

When at length I answered, I began: "Alas!
What sweetest thoughts, what green and young desire
led these two lovers to this sorry pass."

Quando rispuosi, cominciai: "Oh lasso,
quanti dolci pensier, quanto disio
menò costoro al doloroso passo!"

[ChrisGeorge]

Originally Posted by Peter Chipman

I'm with Nemo and John W. on this one. Offhand I don't remember whether I've used "alas" or not, but I would do so without compunction if the situation seemed to warrant it.

(Incidentally, I just got my hardcover copy of Anterooms today, in which Mr. Wilbur writes of "Shocked faces that, alas, / Now know me for an ass.")

Just for fun I ran a New York Times online archive search on instances of "alas" from the Times. Even limiting the search to the past thirty days (is that current enough for you?), there's no shortage of hits:

"The festival’s other defining element, alas, cannot be brought to New York, and that is its special setting, the town of Risor."

"Mr. Harris, the 'How I Met Your Mother' star, who has previously served as the host of those first two awards ceremonies he mentioned, must, alas, continue to wait to complete that personal triple play."

"Alas, that power went to their heads, and filmmakers indulged themselves into a creative dead ends ('At Long Last Love') and financial calamities ('One From the Heart')."

"Alas, that did not stop him from soon becoming a consultant to one of the most leveraged banks of all, Lehman Brothers."

Most of these (with the exception of the Neil Patrick Harris one) aren't especially jocular in tone, either.

Hello Peter

I thought the conversation was centered about whether "alas" works in modern-day poetry. You are providing examples from articles in the New York Times which is a different context altogether. For poetry it's outmoded but it is not necessarily antiquated usage to use "alas" in an essay or a feature article.

Chris

[Peter Chipman]

Well, Chris, people were taking various positions in the thread:

1. that "alas" is cringeworthy when it's used without irony in a modern poem;
2. that it's common in older people's speech but not in younger people's;
3. that it's OK as a connector with adverbial force but not as a standalone interjection;
4. that it's more acceptable in speech than in print;
5. that when it is used it's usually used with self-consciously archaic intent;
and so on.

I mostly wanted to address points 4 and 5 by showing that "alas" is common in print, and not primarily in satirical or self-consciously archaic contexts. To that end, I posted one quote from a contemporary poem and several from contemporary prose. It seemed relevant to the discussion as it had developed to that point.

But even with regard to modern poetry, I think the evidence suggests that "alas" has plenty of life in it yet. You could argue that Richard Wilbur gets a pass because he's a holdover from an earlier generation. But given that we have several posters' testimony for the currency of "alas" in speech, and we have plenty of evidence for its currency in prose, what basis do we have for saying it's not acceptable in poetry?

I'm not saying that it would fit easily in every poet's lexicon, nor that it is still used (and usable) in all the same contexts where it was used (and usable) in centuries past. But surely it isn't entirely out of place in today's poetry. And I don't think we can say it works only in explicitly comical or parodic contexts.

yours,
Peter

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Peter Chipman

I'm not saying that it would fit easily in every poet's lexicon, nor that it is still used (and usable) in all the same contexts where it was used (and usable) in centuries past. But surely it isn't entirely out of place in today's poetry. And I don't think we can say it works only in explicitly comical or parodic contexts.

Peter,

Exactly. One of the nice things about technology is it gives us actual data, rather than mere assertions. So one can put every poem one's ever written into a directory, and then search that directory for a single word.

Doing this, I find I've used it four times in published poems. Not overuse, but not an anomaly either. And I guess that's the best test I can think of: "Does it stick out like a sore thumb?" We can worry the subject all we want, for whatever the theological reason... but can it pass that test?

Or, we could come at it another way. What's an example of a word that *doesn't* pass that test? And since I'm raising the question, I guess I should have an answer!

Here it is. It's in Robinson Jeffers. It's not an example chosen in bad faith: I love the poem. It's called Cassandra:

"...Truly men hate the truth. They'd liefer
meet a tiger on the road..."

Here, 'liefer' *does* stand out like a sore thumb. Jeffers is just performing onanism by using it, and he knew full well that he was, and it amused him to do so. It was the wrong impulse.

Yes, it's a minor point, and we have much bigger fish to fry. But I don't think we should worry about things like 'Alas' too much...

Thanks,

Bill

[Andrew Frisardi]

Thank you all for setting me straight(er) on "alas."

This is a postscript for this thread, which has in fact convinced me to try out alas here and there—with my eyes closed, wincing over how it might feel when I see it in print.

I was talking last night with a couple of Italian friends, both of whom are well educated and all that. We read the entire Divine Comedy together a while back, so they know Dante’s language quite well. And they were surprised when I told them that lasso (the word for “alas” that made me start this thread) can mean “alas.” They insisted it simply means “tired” or “weary,” which in fact Dante often does use it for. They were mistaken about this, since the poets in the old days, including Dante in the Divine Comedy, did use lasso in the sense I meant it for this thread. But I thought it was interesting, and I was very surprised, that it was news to them. (They’d forgotten the occurrences of it in the DC.) The fact that they thought only of its meaning as "tired or weary" does suggest that even when lasso is used as an exclamation meaning misery or suffering the original sense of weariness comes along with it. Our "alas" doesn't do that, it seems to me, although it probably did back in Shakespeare's day.

I still can’t imagine anyone in my family or any friends I’ve had saying “alas”—maybe I just don’t listen enough!

[John Whitworth]

Words like 'liefer' and 'alas' don't stick out like sore thumbs to me. But then to me all American poems contain words and constructions that are odd. So do Australian poems. There is no Standard English except the dialect spoken around Canterbury in the county of Kent. Not as far as I am concerned. For all I know Americans are saying 'liefer' all the time. And 'Alas'.

[W.F. Lantry]

Canterbury? Really? And all this time, people have been telling me it was only spoken in Portsmouth!

Well, there goes another cherished illusion! At this rate, pretty soon, there'll be none left...

Thanks,

Bill

[W.F. Lantry]

At last! By sheer coincidence, as of today, the tools to find the real and true answer to this question are available to us! Yippee!

And here it is: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?c...=0&smoothing=3

Clicking that link will lead to true enlightenment. Actual usage! And best of all, it works for any word, or combination of words!

Thanks,

Bill

(ps. You can have the absolute most fun by going to thesaurus.com and typing in your favorite word. The returned lists are given, separated by commas. Just copy the whole list, go back to the link, paste in the terms, and hit enter! All your questions have answers!