Scrabble’s Two Letter Words – In, Is, It & Jo

by jmgariepy · May 9, 2014

Of a set. That definition will need to do. I’m not interested in explaining the thirty definitions of the word that Dictionary.com cites. ‘In’ is so ubiquitous, that twenty-five of those definitions either include the word ‘in’ in the definition, or include a word that starts with the prefix ‘in-‘ (such as the word ‘include’.) When you need to define a word by using the word itself, language as a construct falls apart.

Instead, let’s talk about what’s in, or what’s fashionable. This use of the word ‘in’ might sound like beat crowd slang, but Merriam-Webster connects the word ‘fashionable’ with the word ‘in’ as far back as 1599. So, if you had a time machine, and traveled to 1599, what would the social elite of London tell you was ‘in’? They’d explain that rigid Spanish formal wear (which was all the rage in the mid-sixteenth century) was out, unless you were a filthy, backwards Protestant. Meanwhile, daring Italian and French styles cut back on the layering of dresses, and permitted women to show a little skin. It would still be a few decades before gigantic ruffled collars were ‘out’, though. The original purpose of the ruff was to protect your doublet from stains. By the early sixteenth century ruffs were being used as a way to present a floating head, on top of a boob window.

Ooh, la la.

See Am.

That thing. Amusingly, It can also mean fashionable; an expression that became popular when the movie ‘It‘ came out in 1927, and newspapers referred to Clara Bow, the lead actress, as “The ‘It’ Girl”.

Ever since then, the title of ‘It Girl‘ has been passed down to a number of young women who personify… hold on a second. Who are these girls? I’m looking at examples of ‘It Girl’ on Wikipedia and on various fashion blogs, and am finding the expression ‘It girl’ lost its impact in ninety years. Alyson Hannigan may be a beautiful, talented actress, but she ain’t no ‘It girl’ of the nineties. By definition, she couldn’t be as long as she remained in Sarah Michelle Gellar‘s shadow.

Looks like we need to reexamine the definition of ‘it’ as first described by Rudyard Kipling in 1905, which was the basis for the movie ‘It’ in the first place. In his short story Mrs. Bathurst, Kipling describes his eponymous barmaid character as thus:

“Tisn’t beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just It. Some women’ll stay in a man’s memory once they walk down the street.”

Rudyard isn’t talking about sexuality, but of sexiness: Desire, based upon the foundation of constant curiosity. Marilyn Monroe had ‘It’. So did Bridget Bardot, Farrah Fawcett, Madonna, Winona Ryder and J. Lo. Each of these women were not only sexy in their own unique way, but smashed previous expectations of what sexy is, created the new sexy and sold it to a generation. Before Clara Bow, androgynous flappers were considered degenerate scum. After Clara Bow, bobbing your hair, dumping the curves and showing some leg was the height of fashion.

Beloved or darling. Derived from how the Scottish pronounced the word ‘Joy’ in the sixteenth century. As an example of use, the Oxford English Dictionary quotes an Alexander Scott poem with “Hir court hes jo, quhair evir thay go.” Thanks OED. That cleared things right up.

If you’re playing Scrabble and someone challenges your word on grounds that Jo is archaic and nobody uses it, point them to the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne, whose traditional chorus includes the lines:

On Old long syne my jo,
on Old long syne,
That thou canst never once reflect,
on Old long syne.

Granted, many artists choose to replace the word ‘jo’ for ‘dear’, since the words ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is confusing enough to non-Scottish ears. In case you’re curious, ‘Auld Lang Syne’ literally means ‘Old Long Since’, which roughly means ‘A long time ago’. Huh. That makes the chorus of Auld Lang Syne the 18th Century equivalent of this: