Ben Yagoda has a post about the recent rise in frequency of the word alongside:
The American-born University of Sussex linguist Lynne Murphy recently remarked on her blog (Separated by A Common Language): “A few months ago, an American friend of my spouse asked him to ask me: ‘Why is everyone suddenly saying alongside?’”
That put the word on my radar, and within days I was asking the same question as Lynne’s friend. It seemed like I couldn’t avoid “alongside”! And a little research demonstrated that the two of us weren’t imagining things. […]
I hasten to say that “alongside” is an old word. Here’s the first definition in the Oxford English Dictionary: “Nautical. Close to the side of another vessel; side by side with another vessel. Later also: secured to a quay, wharf, etc.” This first citation is from 1704 and in 1798, there’s this from Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: “The naked Hulk alongside came.” By that time the word had started being used in the non-nautical contexts we see today: first, to mean literally next to, and then more figuratively to indicate “together with” or “compared to.”
To get a sense of the current uses, here are a few examples from the New York Times, all posted today or yesterday, a couple with two in one article […]
The million-dollar question is why has the word become so voguish? Unfortunately, “why” questions are difficult to answer (well). But I will say that it fits in with a trend I’ve been following for some time: saying things with more words or even letters than used to be considered sufficient. I started noticing this fifteen years or so when the college students I taught inexplicably began to write “amongst” instead of “among” and “amidst” instead of “amid”; some even favored “whilst.” They and lots of others started adding a “t” sound in the middle of the word “often,” and sometimes replaced it with “oftentimes.” And they universally preferred “based off of” to “based on.” […]
One more point. You’ll notice that the first two Times examples I gave are from sports coverage, which is very much given to the wordiness mentioned above. “Fans” have become “fan base” […] And beyond that, I believe that athletic “alongside” has a very particular history. It starts with a late ’90s Aaron Sorkin sitcom called Sports Night, which centered on a double-anchored, smart sports news show on the model of ESPN’s Sports Center. Anyway, when one of the anchors intro’d the show, he always said “alongside”—i.e., “This is Dan Rydell alongside Casey McCall.” As Dan said it, it had a slightly ironic feel, similar to the way David Letterman would refer to “a “comedy television program.” The intro was so much a feature of the show that it’s quoted verbatim in this AV club piece.
A few years later, NFL announcer Joe Buck, started opening his coverage a particular way: “This is Joe Buck, alongside the Hall of Famer Troy Aikman.” Again, just a touch ironic, especially as it became ritualized: Buck used the same language for baseball broadcasts, subbing in John Smoltz’s name; on WNBA coverage, it’s “Ryan Ruocco, alongside the Hall of Famer Rebecca Lobo”’; and in boxing, it’s “Bernardo Osuna alongside the Hall of Famer Timothy Bradley.” The line has even filtered down to local TV—see for yourself!
I’m dubious about linking it with things like “amongst” and “oftentimes,” but the Sports Night background is interesting and probably a genuine influence. (Click through for more examples and supporting video.)
How long has Yagoda been titling his substack “More Mush from the Wimp”? How many of Today’s Young People understand the historical allusion (from 1980)?
On the substance, I’m not going to argue with the corpus data but “alongside” doesn’t sound the least bit British to me
A few years later, NFL announcer Joe Buck, started opening his coverage a particular way: “This is Joe Buck, alongside the Hall of Famer Troy Aikman.” Again, just a touch ironic, especially as it became ritualized: Buck used the same language for baseball broadcasts, subbing in John Smoltz’s name; on WNBA coverage, it’s “Ryan Ruocco, alongside the Hall of Famer Rebecca Lobo”’; and in boxing, it’s “Bernardo Osuna alongside the Hall of Famer Timothy Bradley.”
I’m delighted if all those announcers are really going arthrous (unlike Ben Yagoda).
I have no idea why “oftentimes” is doing what it’s doing.
J.W.: How many of Today’s Young People understand the historical allusion (from 1980)?
I could name one of Today’s Old People who had to look it up. (A temporary headline in the Boston Globe about Jimmy Carter that accidentally made it into print, for anyone who wasn’t following American media blunders in 1980.)
Google ngrams dies not support any suggestion that “oftentimes” is notably British
or becoming more commonETA, rebounding tbf
“alongside” doesn’t sound the least bit British to me
Do you mean:
It’s not familiar in BrE? Then I disagree, though I might have an overly nautical bent.
It’s not more BrE than AmE/world E? Then I agree.
I haven’t noticed alongside becoming more frequent in C21. I must be reading the wrong sort of books/newspapers. (It does appear in The Odyssey, if that’s relevant.) I don’t recognise Yagoda’s examples as the sort of stuff I’d be reading. I have heard sharing sleeping arrangements with a significant other described as “berthing alongside”.
I suppose Yagoda has to fill his quota somehow.
As a BrE speaker “alongside” still has a nautical flavour to me.
My impression is that a fanbase is different from fans, a fanbase being a collective made up of individual fans.
Perhaps the strictures against “off of” are wearing thin. When I was at school we were taught that “off of” was overly colloquial (though not in those exact words, of course) and should be avoided.
We colloquials actually preferred offa.
Another of Today’s Old People who didn’t understand the allusion. Thanks, Jerry.
The connection to words like “amongst” and “oftentimes” may just be that some people who, consciously or not, notice their (apparently?) more frequent use then want to use them too, no matter the context or genre. As an editor of government documents here in Taiwan, ten to twelve years ago I noticed a big surge of “amongst,” “amidst,” “whilst,” and even “betwixt” in the work of other editors from the US (not to mention “as such” used to mean “therefore,” previously discussed at the Hattery). So Yagoda’s noticing this fifteen or so years ago is interesting–a spread among/amongst USian speakers across oceans and national boundaries?
Agree of Robert Greaves on the difference between “fans” and “fanbase.”
“The team has a large fanbase.”
“Many fans watched the game.”
Against the “-st = British” trend is unbeknownst/unbeknown
@AntC: I meant the second of your options: in the context of AmEng discourse the word “alongside” isn’t marked as “British-sounding” the way words like “whilst” or “lorry” or “Nigel” would be.
Ah, the trend begetting “whomst’d’ve”. I’d chalk this all up to the pleonasm cycle, where words feel too short so people lengthen them, then replace them for abbreviated versions or shorter synonyms, and so on and so forth. The poster child of this is aujourd’hui. IIRC it’s explained very nicely by Deutscher, but anyway here’s a more academic chapter touching on it.
I would have said it had a specific place in UK sports reporting, although I don’t think it’s exactly the same place. If I’m remembering correctly, you hear it from the people whose job it is to wander about with a mic doing short interviews (or possibly have a spot where other people drop in, depending on the setup).
“I’m downstairs at the Superduper Stadium, and alongside me is football legend Joe Bloggs. Joe, what do you think about what we’ve seen so far?”