beloved

We all have a sensitivity to words that seem to be the fashion of the moment, words that grate on our ear just because of their frequency of use. I must admit I hadn’t registered beloved among these but it appears that Ross Gittins has:

Finally, before we get into this week’s column, a little gripe about jargon: my nomination for overworked word of the year is “beloved”.  These days, everything is beloved by someone, even Albo’s football team.  I’ve been tasked with helming the antic-beloved campaign.  I’ll be gifting my services, naturally.  But first I’ll google it.

Ross Gittins, April 1, 2023.

Well I did google beloved on Google Ngram and found that it had high frequency in the 1800s, a decline in the 20th century, and an increase in frequency from 2000 onward.

It seems that beloved has the sense of a deep emotion held over a long period of time.  For that reason it scores more highly than just loved in the register of feeling, and definitely more than favourite.  And for that reason perhaps there is a drift towards beloved as the strongest word to use.  We all like to boost our communications with highly charged adjectives.

There are lots of beloved football teams on google, as well as beloved hobbies, beloved gardens, beloved houses and farms and properties, beloved beaches and camping grounds.  Lots of deep affection scattered around.

The pronunciation can be three syllables (be-lov-ed) or two (be-loved).  This is a personal choice but can be guided by the rhythm of the phrase.

Gittins may eschew beloved but he is obviously on top of a lot of other jargon words, helpfully paraded in his column.  Tasking and helming and gifting I am familiar with but I will have to listen out for beloved.