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The word gossip may refer to:
- the act of spreading news from person to person, especially rumors or private information: see chat
- the news spread through the act of gossiping
- a talkative woman (from the word's original meaning of "godparent")
- an indie band rock band on the label Kill Rock Stars
While gossip forms one of the oldest and (still) the most common means of spreading and sharing information, it also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and other variations into the information thus transmitted. The term also carries implications that the news so transmitted (usually) has a personal or trivial nature. Compare conversation.
Gossip has recently come into the academy as a fruitful avenue of study, particularly in light of its relationship to both overt and implicit power structures. Compare discourse.
Some newspapers carry "gossip columns" which retail the social and personal lives of celebrities or of élite members of a local community.
Etymology
The word "gossip" originates from god-sib, the godparent of one's child or parent of one's godchildren ("god-sibling", see also sabhā), referring to a relationship of close friendship. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the usage of godsib back as far as 1014.
The noun gossip is attested in the meaning "idle talk; trifling or groundless rumour; tittle-tattle" from 1811. This is now the primary meaning of the word, although in literary English, it can still be used in the sense of "talkative woman", apparently a near-synonym with "godparent" in Early Modern English, the first attestation of the extended meaning of "anyone engaging in familiar or idle talk" being from 1566. The verb to gossip dates to the early 17th century.
One popular etymology connects the word with "to sip" politicians would send assistants to bars to sit and listen to general public conversations. The assistants had instructions to sip a beer and listen to opinions; they responded to the command to "go sip", which allegedly turned into "gossip".
Functions of gossip
Gossip can serve to:
- normalise and re-inforce moral boundaries in a speech-community
- foster and build a sense of community with shared interests and information
- entertain and divert participants in gossip-sessions
- retail and develop stories and even legends: see memetics
- build structures of social accountability
- further mutual social grooming (like many other uses of language, only more so)
- as a mating tool that allows women to know which men are socially desirable and which men are social pariahs and should, thus, be avoided.
- reflect unvarnished and spontaneous public opinion - of interest to marketeers, opinion pollers and secret policemen.
In modern times, "gossip" is now often commonly understood to mean the spreading of rumor and misinformation, often through exicted conversation over scandals.
Enemies of gossip
Some see gossip as trivial, hurtful and socially and/or intellectually unproductive.
In a more sinister interpretation, restrictions on gossip could potentially paralyse the free flow of information and enforce straight-jacketed thinking and censorship in a community. Compare freedom of speech.
Quotes
Gossip, even when it avoids the sexual, bears around it a faint flavor of the erotic. - Patricia Meyer Spacks
See also
Bibliography
- Robert F. Goodman and A. Ben-Zeev, eds. Good Gossip. Univ. Press of Kansas, 1993.
- Patricia Meyer Spacks. Gossip. New York: Knopf, 1985.
External links
- Ronald de Sousa (U Toronto) on Gossip
- Go Ahead Gossip May Be excelent, New York Times article August 10, 2002
- Emrys Westacott (Alfred U) The Ethics of Gossiping
- Perspectives on Gossip The theme of gossip in three literary pieces
"Gossip"