“Helpful Hints”
May 27th, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 2 Comments |
(”I don’t think it means what you think it means.” -Inigo Montoya)
The property managers here at our apartment community periodically have an exterminator come ’round and exterminate. I guess. We just got a notice that they’re going to be doing it again.
It’s nice of them. Not that we have any bug problem, but . . . well, “there it is” (as the Brits would say).
What isn’t nice of them is the section on the flier/notice labeled:
HELPFUL HINTS!!!!!!!!
1. KEEP ALL FOODS IN SEALED CONTAINERS. KEEP COUNTERS, CABINETS, DRAWERS AND FLOORS CLEANED.
2. NEVER KEEP AND STORE BROWN GORCERCY BAGS, NEWSPAPER OR THOSE ALIKE; ["those alike"??? -MT] A GREAT PLAACE [sic -MT] FOR BREEDING.
And so on.
Actually, what isn’t nice is their use of the word “hints” in the section title.
Hints have to do with puzzles. One person knows the answer; another person doesn’t. The former person wants to help the latter person figure out the answer, without simply giving it away. So she offers him some “hints.”*
Hints are like “clues,” except that hints have to come from a person (who knows the answer) — and be intentionally given to someone to help her figure out the answer, — while clues might simply be discovered by the person who doesn’t know the answer. Clues can be “accidentally left behind,” as it were (e.g., footprints, hair, sample of rare soil only found in one area of Mysteryton) but hints can’t.
So, our property managers evidently have some “hints” for us to help us figure out the answer (which they already know, but won’t tell us) to how to solve our bug problem (which we don’t have).
Speaking of condescending . . . .
The word they were looking for is “tips,” I think. It doesn’t have the puzzle connotation. But it does still have the “we’re in-the-know and you aren’t” connotation.
Perhaps, “A Helpful Checklist!!!!!!!!” might have been best.
___________________
*No, I didn’t mean it that way.
So you’re telling me that “Hints from Helouise” (http://www.heloise.com/) has been wrong all these years?
You prompted me to look this one up. Dictionary.com has “A brief or indirect suggestion; a tip: stock-trading hints.” as one of the definitions. An additional source on the same site gives this:
“hint2 [hint] noun
a helpful suggestion
Example: I can give you some useful gardening hints.”
Even if those aren’t good enough, I’m willing to chalk your landlord’s choice up to common usage, which is really what determines meaning anyway.
(Is this what we might call an etymological smack-down?)
Adam
If Helouise is helping people solve problems they don’t know how to solve themselves, then “hints” is probably fine.
As to the question of etymology, I’m not sure. I have no idea what older words “hint” is derived from.
But I am arguing that the word’s sense derives from its use in a specific “language game” (as Wittengstein would say) which has to do with puzzles and implies that the hint-giver knows more than the hint-taker.
And “dictionary schmictionary” is the only other thing I have to say. *grin*