Christian Ford

Christian Ford is attempting to make amends for his career in the motion picture/television industry by now telling stories about things that matter. He writes for a food and culture web-magazine out of Chicago, Hogsalt.

Society

Difficult Words #5: Illth

The first thing to know is that illth is a real word which you can find in Volume VII of the Oxford English Dictionary. It was coined in 1860 by John Ruskin, the English writer, artist, philanthropist and all-around too-smart-guy-with-spot-on-taste. Ruskin, from his vantage point in the cockpit of the industrial revolution, realized that reality had outpaced the language. In an era of spectacular explosions of riches and astounding leaps in material culture — that is, the stuff  that we have access to — there was something else happening, too.  That something was the opposite of wealth, which he termed illth.

 

May 6, 2013

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