Dramaturge

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

This is Flo Sykes out in Pacific Beach.

Hiya, Flo.

Hiya, Flo.

What’s going on out there?

You’re out in PB?

Yep, out in PB, right on beautiful Mission Bay.

Oh, lovely.

Well, what’s up?

Well, I had been interested in what had happened to the word dramaturge, which used to mean playwright, and all of a sudden it’s being used all sorts of strange ways, including as a verb. I got a letter where they said this woman had dramaturged the production. I want to know why the words changed or if it has officially or what’s going on.

Okay, dramaturged, D-R-A-M-A-T-U-R-G. Do you put the E on the end of that or no?

Hey, don’t ask me how to spell.

Well, now, Flo, what has you interested in this?

Well, besides the fact that I spent my life teaching drama, I have a niece now, and she went off to college, and she came back from a vacation, or on a vacation, and said she was going to be the dramaturg for a production. And I said, you’re going to be the dramaturg? That play’s already been written. And in her case, they were using it as the assistant to the director.

And then I got a letter from the University of Denver where they had this new person joining the faculty who was a wonderful dramaturge and who had dramaturged all kinds of things. And I went to the dictionary and then I said, call A Way with Words! Put on the red siren and the flashing lights.

That’s right. When the dictionary isn’t good enough, call A Way with Words.

Well, let me ask you a question. So when you’re speaking about this word changing out from underneath you, it’s because you’re in the business and you would know, right?

Well, at least I went through 70-some years thinking I knew.

Wow.

Well, you should know after all that time. You should know.

Let me say, though, you’ve identified exactly how this word has diverged. And it’s not that the old meaning has disappeared. No, it’s still very common. And all of the dictionaries that I own will tell you that. But many of them, and not all of them, which is the clue here, many of them also include the second meaning that you’re talking about, where a dramaturge isn’t only a playwright, but a dramaturge can also be a person who does research about a play or adapts a play for use in a particular production.

And that was one I kind of wondered is when did that change start coming in?

Oh, that’s a tough one. It looks like it’s in the last 20 to 25 years, and I think it was a slow build. And I don’t think it’s—it’s not even that common now. If you look, for example, as for dramaturg as a verb, you come up with a few thousand hits on Google. It appears in some journals about theater and in various things related to the—you know, they’re filled with the jargon of the business of putting on a show. So in a sense, this is just our language growing again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it’s interesting that, you know, the letter that you talked about, where they verbed the noun, so to speak, and talked about dramaturging, is really a very typical way in which English changes. Nouns become verbs, and verbs become nouns, and so forth. And whether or not it sticks is going to depend upon how much people are accepting of that verb. So people will try it and float it all the time. But, you know, if somebody like you and people like you say, yeah, you know, I don’t really care for the verb, you might actually find that you are successful because it’s relatively new enough that you’re successful in pushing it back and making the verb not last.

So you do have some say as a speaker of English on whether or not a word really catches on, a little bit of say.

Well, Flo, I think you’re right that we’re just watching the language change.

Well, and we don’t want English to stop growing. It won’t be the biggest language in the world if it stops growing.

Well, it’s not just a matter of pride of size. If the language stops growing, it means we have stopped growing as a culture.

Yes.

So thank you so much for your call, Flo. I hope you enjoy the view out there. I’m actually a little envious. I only have gray skies and brick walls at my house.

He’s angling for a visit, Flo. Come out any time and have a glass of wine on the balcony and look out over the water and watch the sun go down.

All right.

I’m just a few miles from you. It’s refreshing just to hear you say that.

Okey-doke. Take care of yourself. I’m glad you called us.

Well, and thanks for the answer.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a question about language, we’d love to hear it. Martha, in particular, likes to talk about the Greek roots of words. Give us a call. You got it. 1-877-929-9673. And you can send us an email to words@waywordradio.org. I just love seeing that fossilized Greek poetry inside the English language.