Dr Leach's new Jerusalem
LETTERS
From Dr C. B. Goodhart, Leonard Cottrell, Bernard Palmer, John Radcliff, Charles Janson, David Morse, R. F. Fernsby, John R. Mac- laren, The Hon C. M. Woodhouse, Ronald Strom, Joseph Macleod.
Sir: The Shorter OED defines 'tawdry' (derived from St Audrey's lace) as 'showy or gaudy, without real value; cheaply adorned.' And it is under the latter heading that the OED puts the quotation from Miss Braddon (1862) chosen by Dr Edmund Leach (Letters, 22 December) to illustrate the sense in which he had used the word.
But is showiness really what Dr Leach had in mind when he spoke of the 'tawdry secrets of the isolated nuclear family in Britain'? Indeed, isn't a tawdry secret' almost a contradiction in terms?
If Dr Leach had meant to imply that family privacy was 'contemptibly mean, ungenerous, dis- creditably inferior in quality,%then that is the SOED definition of 'shabby.' Samuel Johnson condemned this as 'a word that has crept into conversation and low writing, but ought not to be admitted into the language.' It is with us now, however, and there seems to be little dictionary authority for confusing it with 'tawdry' in modern usage.
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