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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Today I was reading an article in the Edge e-zine by Don Tapscott, the author of Growing Up Digital and Grown Up Digital. Tapscott puts these words in the mouth of an imaginary instructor in a university: “I’m a professor and I have knowledge. You’re a student you’re an empty vassal and you don’t.â€
Empty vassal? I think the expression Tapscott was reaching for is “empty vessel,†an old metaphor for bereavement (cf. Jeremiah 51:34 in the KJV) or witlessness (cf. the saying “an empty vessel makes the loudest soundâ€).
“Vassal†and “vessel†are etymologically unrelated. “Vassal†comes from a Latin term for “servant†and may ultimately be a Celtic loanword. “Vessel†is from the Latin word for a vase. The phrase “empty vessel†is often derogatory, so the substitution of “vassal,†a word for a social inferior, makes some sense. What does not make sense is the substitution of a word that is less common with one that is more common. “Vessel†occurs forty times more often in COCA, ten times more often in the BNC, than “vassal.â€
Tapscott is not alone in his confusion about “vassal†and “vessel.†Dozens of web sites use “empty vassal†in contexts that call for “empty vessel.†Examples:
Comment on a group blog post: “Palin lives by the sword, so she dies by the sword. She is an empty vassal of a politician….â€
Another blog comment: “Just reading your idiotic blog it’s obvious you are nothing but an empty vassal that has been filled with liberal boilerplate by numerous poli-sci professors….â€
Web fiction: “You go through the transporter and your soul does not follow you, so you are essentially dead, or worse, an empty vassal that a dark spirit could fill.â€
Last edited by kem (2009-06-21 19:23:56)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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Nice, the examples of “empty vassal” say more than “empty vessel” would have, along with keeping the empty vessel overtones, and there are lots more examples out there. I count about 200 appropriate ghits. There are also many inexplicable examples of “blood vassal” —about 400 once you get rid of the sword and sorcery stuff. On the other hand, blood vessel raw hits are 15 times as common as empty vessel hits. So I count empty vassal as an unusual but valid eggcorn.
One of the hits for “blood vassal” was Dr. Vassal, writing in the journal Blood (1993, 82: 1030-1034).
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Sometimes it takes a while for a round-tripper to make the return part of the journey – I was about to enter ‘vessel state’ for ‘vassal state’ when I came upon this post of Kem’s. A vassal state is clearly subordinate to another and perhaps financially dependent upon it; a vessel state suggests a country flying a flag of convenience, available for hire to the highest bidder or the most powerful.
They would like to make it a vessel state actually under Indian rule but having legal independent status so that India can utilize its vote in the …
However, Korea still remained as a vessel state until the first Sino-Japanese War in 1895.
Being a vessel state under Denmark, and later Sweden, Norway at this time had no army of its own. Among many historians “The battle of Kringen†therefore …
... forget that the Sultan of the Malacca Sultanate KNEELED in front of the Ming (Chinese) Emporer to ask to be a vessel state of China?
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